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EPICURUS 
Bronze Bust in National Museum, Naples. 



WHY WORRY? 



BY 

GEORGE LINCOLN WALTON, M.D. 

CONSTJLTING NEUROLOGIST 
TO THE MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL 



The legs of the stork are long, the legs 
of the duck are short ; you cannot make 
the legs of the stork short, neither can 
you make the legs of the duck long. 
Why v/oriy'^—Chwang Tsze. 




PHILADELPHIA & LONDON 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COjVIPANY 

1908 

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MAY 16 1908 






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Copyright, 1907 
By J. B. LippixcoTT Company 



Copyright, 190S 
By J. B. Lippincott Company 



Published May, 1908 



Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company 
The Washington Square Press, Philadelphia, U. S. A. 



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TO 

MY LONG-SUFFERING FAMILY 

AND 

CIRCLE OP FRIENDS, 

WHOSE PATIENCE HAS BEEN TRIED BY 

MY EFFORTS TO ELIMINATE WORRY, THIS 

BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 

No apology is needed for adding 
another to the treatises on a subject 
whose importance is evidenced by the 
number already offered the public. 

The habit of worry is not to be 
overcome by unaided resolution. It 
is hoped that the victim of this un- 
fortunate tendency may find, among 
the homely illustrations and common- 
place suggestions here offered, some- 
thing to turn his mind into more 
healthy channels. It is not the aim 
of the writer to transform the busy 
man into a philosopher of the indol- 
ent and contemplative type, but 
rather to enable him to do his work 
more effectively by eliminating un- 
due solicitude. This elimination is 
consistent even with the ** strenuous 
life." 



PREFACE 

One writer has distinguislied be- 
tween normal and abnormal worry, 
and directed his efforts against the 
latter. Webster's definition of worry 
(A state of nndue solicitude) obvi- 
ates the necessity of deciding what 
degree and kind of worry is abnor- 
mal, and directs attention rather to 
deciding what degree of solicitude 
may be fairly adjudged undue. 

In the treatment of a subject of 
this character a certain amount of 
repetition is unavoidable. But it is 
hoped that the reiteration of funda- 
mental principles and of practical 
hints will aid in the application of 
the latter. The aim is the gradual 
establishment of a frame of mind. 
The reader who looks for the annihi- 
lation of individual worries, or who 
hopes to influence another by the 
direct application of the suggestions, 



PREFACE 

may prepare, in the first instance for 
disappointment, in the second, for 
trouble. 

The thanks of the writer are due 
to Miss Amy Morris Homans, Direc- 
tor of the Boston Normal School of 
Gymnastics, for requesting him to 
make to her students the address 
which forms the nucleus of these 

pages. 

George L. Walton. 

Boston, April, 1908. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introductory 13 

11. Epicurus as a Mental Healer 22 

III. The Psycho - Therapy of Marcus 

AURELIUS 30 

IV. Analysis of Worry 39 

V. Worry and Obsession 53 

VI. The Doubting Folly 82 

VII. Hyponchondria 101 

VIII. Neurasthenia 129 

IX. Sleeplessness 147 

X. Occupation Neurosis 166 

XI. The Worrier at Home 172 

XII. The Worrier on his Travels 184 

XIII. The Worrier at the Table 190 

XVI. The Fear of Becoming Insane 197 

XV. Recapitulatory 210 

XVI. Maxims Misapplied 215 

XVII. The Fad 222 

XVIII. Home Treatment 242 

XIX. Home Treatment Continued 259 



DEFINITIONS. 

Worry. A state of undue solicitude. 

Hypochondria. A morbid mental condition 
characterized by undue solicitude regarding 
the health, and undue attention to matters 
thereto pertaining. 

Obsession. An unduly insistent and compulsive 
thought, habit of mind, or tendency to action. 

Doubting Folly {Folie du doute.) A state of 
mind characterized by a tendency unduly to 
question, argue and speculate upon ordinary 
matters. 

Neurasthenia. A form of nervous disturbance 
characterized by exhaustion and irritability. 

Phobia. An insistent and engrossing fear with- 
out adequate cause, as judged by ordinary 
standards. 

Occupation Neurosis. A nervous disorder in 
which pain, sometimes with weakness and 
cramp, results from continued use of a part. 

Psycho-Therapy. Treatment through the mind. 

No other technical terms are used. 



H 



I. 

INTRODUCTORY 

When Thales was asked what was difficult he said, 
" To know oneself " ; and what was easy, " To advise 
another." 

Marcus Aurelius counselled, '^Let 
another pray, ^Save Thou my child,' 
but do thou pray, ^Let me not fear to 
lose him.' " 

Few of us are likely to attain this 
level; few, perhaps, aspire to do so. 
Nevertheless, the training which falls 
short of producing complete self-con- 
trol may yet accomplish something in 
the way of fitting us, by taking the 
edge off our worry, to react more 
comfortably to our surroundings, 
thus not only rendering us more de- 
sirable companions, but contribut- 
ing directly to our own health and 
happiness. 

13 



WHY WORRY? 

Under the ills produced by faulty 
mental tendencies I do not include 
cancer and the like. This inclusion 
seems to me as subversive of the laws 
of nature as the cure of such disease 
by mental treatment would be mirac- 
ulous. At the same time, serious 
disorders siu^ely result from faulty 
mental tendencies. 

In this category we must include, 
for example, hypochondria, a dis- 
turbance shown by undue anxiety 
concerning one's own physical and 
mental condition. This disorder, 
with the allied fears resulting from 
the urgent desire to be always abso- 
lutely safe, absolutely well, and 
absolutely comfortable, is capable, in 
extreme cases, of so narrowing the 
circle of pleasure and of usefulness 
that the sufferer might almost as well 
have organic disease. 

14 



INTRODUCTORY 

Neurasthenia (nervous prostra- 
tion) has for its immediate exciting 
cause some overwork or stress of cir- 
cumstance, but the sufferer not in- 
frequently was already so far handi- 
capped by regrets for the past, doubts 
for the present, and anxieties for the 
future, by attention to minute details 
and by unwillingness to delegate re- 
sponsibilities to others, that he was 
exhausted by his own mental travail 
before commencing upon the over- 
work which precipitated his break- 
down. In such cases the occasion of 
the collapse may have been his work, 
but the underlying cause was deeper. 
Many neurasthenics who think they 
are ^^all run down" are really ^^all 
wound up." They carry their stress 
with them. 

Among the serious results of faulty 
mental habit must be included also 

15 



WHY WORRY? 

the doubting folly {folie du doute). 
The victim of this disorder is so 
querulously anxious to make no mis- 
take that he is forever returning to 
see if he has turned out the gas, 
locked the door, and the like; in ex- 
treme cases he finally doubts the actu- 
ality of his own sensations, and so far 
succumbs to chronic indecision as 
seriously to handicap his efforts. This 
condition has been aptly termed a 
^^ spasm of the attention." 

The apprehensive and fretful may 
show, in varying degree, signs of 
either or all these conditions, accord- 
ing as circumstances may direct their 
attention. 

Passing from serious disorders to 
minor sources of daily discomfort, 
there are few individuals so mentally 
gifted that they are impervious to the 
distress occasioned by variations of 

16 



INTRODUCTORY 

temperature and of weather; to the 
annoyance caused by criticism, neg- 
lect, and lack of appreciation on the 
part of their associates ; to active re- 
sentment, even anger, upon moderate 
provocation; to loss of temper when 
exhausted; to embarrassment in un- 
usual situations; to chronic inde- 
cision; to the sleeplessness resulting 
from mental preoccupation; and 
above all, to the futile regrets, the 
querulous doubts, and the undue 
anxiety included under the term 
worry, designated by a recent author 
^Hhe disease of the age." 

Something may be accomplished in 
the way of lessening all these ills by 
continuous, properly directed effort 
on the part of the individual. 
Every inroad upon one faulty habit 
strengthens the attack upon all, and 
each gain means a step toward the 

2 17 



WHY WORRY? 



acquisition of a mental poise that 
shall give its possessor comparative 
immunity from the petty annoyances 
of daily life. 

In modern psycho-therapy the sug- 
gestion^ whether on the part of the 
physician or of the patient, plays a 
prominent part, and it is in this di- 
rection, aside from the advice regard- 
ing occupation and relaxation, that 
my propositions will trend. I shall 
not include, however, suggestions de- 
pending for their ef&cacy upon self- 
deceit, such as might spring, for 
example, from the proposition that 
if we think there is a fire in the stove 
it warms us, or that if we break a 
pane in the bookcase thinking it a 
window, we inhale with pleasure the 
resulting change of air. The sug- 
gestions are intended to appeal to 
the reason, rather than to the 
imagination. 



18 



INTRODUCTORY 

The special aim will be to pay at- 
tention to the different varieties of 
worry, and to offer easily understood 
and commonplace suggestions which 
any one may practice daily and con- 
tiimously, at last automatically, with- 
out interfering with his routine work 
or recreation. Indeed the tranquil 
mind aids, rather than hinders, effi- 
cient work, by enabling its possessor 
to pass from duty to duty without the 
hindrance of undue solicitude. 

In advising the constitutional wor- 
rier the chief trouble the physician 
finds is an active opposition on the 
part of the patient. Instead of ac- 
cepting another's estimate of his con- 
dition, and another's suggestions for 
its relief, he comes with a precon- 
ceived notion of his own difiiculties, 
and with an insistent demand for 
their instant relief by drug or other- 

19 



WHY WORRY? 

wise. He uses up his mental energy, 
and loses his temper, in the effort to 
convince his physician that he is not 
argumentative. In a less unreason- 
able, but equally difficult class, come 
those who recognize the likeness in 
the portrait painted by the con- 
sultant, but who say they have tried 
everything he suggests, but simply 
^^can't.'' 

It is my hope that some of the 
argumentative class may recognize, 
in my description, their own case in- 
stead of their neighbor's, and may of 
their own initiative adopt some of the 
suggestions; moreover, that some of 
the acquiescent, but despairing class 
will renew their efforts in a different 
spirit. The aim is, not to accomplish 
a complete and sudden cure, but to 
gain something every day, or if losing 
a little to-day, to gain a little to-mor- 

20 



INTRODUCTORY 

row, and ultimately to find one's self 
on a somewhat higher plane, with- 
out discouragement though not com- 
pletely freed from the trammels 
entailed by faulty mental habit. 



21 



11. 

EPICURUS AS A MENTAL HEALER 

'Tis to believe what men inspired of old, 
Faithful, and faithfully informed, unfold. 

Cowper. 

The suggestions offered in the 
following pages are not new. Many 
of them were voiced by Epicurus 
three hundred years before Christ, 
and even then were ancient history. 
Unfortunately Epicurus had his de- 
tractors. One, Timocrates, in par- 
ticular, a renegade from his school, 
spread malicious and unfounded re- 
ports of his doings and sayings, 
reports too easily credited then, and 
starting, perhaps, the misconception 
which to-day prevails regarding the 
aims of this philosopher. 

But when Marcus Aurelius, nearly 

22 



EPICURUS AS A MENTAJL HEALER 

five centuries later, decided to endow 
a philosophical professoriate he es- 
tablished the Epicurean as one of the 
four standard schools. The endorse- 
ment of such a one should surely pre- 
dispose us to believe the authentic 
commentators of Epicurus, and to 
discredit the popular notion which 
makes his cult synonymous with the 
gratification of the appetites, instead 
of with the mental tranquility to 
which he regarded sensual pleasures 
so detrimental that he practically 
limited his diet, and that of his dis- 
ciples, to bread and water. 

It is of special encouragement to 
such of us as painfully realize our 
meagre equipment for reaching a 
high plane of self-control, to learn 
that Epicurus was by nature delicate 
and sensitive. At seven years of age, 
we are told, he could not support him- 

23 



WHY WORRY? 

self on tiptoe, and called himself the 
feeblest of boys. It is said that in 
his boyhood he had to be lifted from 
his chair, that he could not look on 
the sun or a fire, and that his skin was 
so tender as to prevent his wearing 
any dress beyond a simple tunic. 
These physical characteristics sug- 
gest the makings of a first class 
'^fuss" and inveterate worrier. In 
this event his emancipation from 
such tendencies must have been due 
to the practice of his own philosophy. 

As an antidote for the fear of death 
and the miraculous in the heavens 
Epicurus urges the study of Nature, 
showing his appreciation of the fact 
that one thought can only be driven 
out by another, as well as of the im- 
portance of the open air treatment 
of depressing fears. 

That he recognized the doubting 

24 



EPICURUS AS A MENTAL HEALER 

folly and its evils is shown by the fol- 
lowing Maxim for the Wise man : 

^^He shall be steady in his opinion 
and not wavering and doubtful in 
everything." 

To the hypochondriac he said: 

^^ Health in the opinion of some is 
a precious thing; others rank it 
among the indifferent." Again: 

^^If the body be attacked by a 
violent pain the evil soon has an 
end; if, on the contrary, the pain be 
languishing and of long duration it is 
sensible beyond all doubt of some 
pleasure therefrom. Thus, most 
chronical distempers have intervals 
that afford us more satisfaction and 
ease than the distempers we labor un- 
der cause pain." And further: 

^*The Wise man takes care to pre- 
serve the unequivocable blessing of 
an undisturbed and quiet mind even 

25 



WHY WORRY? 

amidst the groans and complaints 
which excess of pain extorts from 
him." He states, again, that one can 
be happy though blind. 

Regarding insomnia, he recognized 
the futility of expecting restful sleep 
to follow a day of fret and worry. He 
says: 

^^He shall enjoy the same tranquil- 
ity in his sleep as when awake.'' 

Epicurus realized that the appar- 
ent inability of the old to acquire new 
habits is due rather to lack of atten- 
tion, and to indifference or preoccu- 
pation, than to lack of aptitude. He 
placed, in fact, no limit to the age 
for learning new methods, stating in 
his letter to Meneceus, — 

^* Youth is no obstacle to the study 
of philosophy — neither ought we to 
be ashamed to concentrate our later 
years to the labor of speculation. 

26 



EPICURUS AS A MENTAL HEALER 

Man has no time limit for learning, 
and ought never to want strength to 
cure his mind of all the evils that 
afflict it." 

Epicurus does not counsel seclusion 
for the cultivation of tranquility, but 
holds that mental equipoise ^^may be 
maintained though one mingles with 
the world, provided he keeps with- 
in the bounds of temperance, and 
limits his desires to what is easily 
obtained." 

Curiously enough, in view of the 
idea of epicureanism which has be- 
come proverbial, Epicurus regards 
the avoidance of excess a logical and 
necessary step toward the tranquil 
life, and among other admonitions is 
found the following Maxim : 

*^The Wise man ought never to 
drink to excess, neither must he spend 
the nights revelling and feasting." 

27 



WHY WORRY? 



We may conclude our selection 
from tlie Maxims of Epicurus by one 
which strikes a body-blow at worry 
and the allied faulty mental habits : 

^^That being who is happy and im- 
mortal is in no way solicitous or 
uneasy on any account, neither does 
he torment or tease others; anger is 
unworthy of his greatness . . . for 
all these things are the property of 
weakness." 

Such then, was the real Epicurus, 
not a seeker after effeminate luxury, 
but a chaste and frugal philosopher, 
serene of mien, and of gentle dis- 
position, firm in his friendships, 
but sacrificing to them none of the 
high ideals which characterized his 
thought. He erred, doubtless, in the 
avoidance of responsibilities and in 
narrowing his efforts to promoting 
the happiness of his own immediate 



28 



EPICURUS AS A MENTAL HEALER 

circle, but he was fearless in the de- 
fence of his principles and steadfast 
in the pursuit of the tranquility 
which for him included truth. 



III. 

MARCUS AURELIUS 

Such a body of teachers distinguished by their 

acquirements and character will hardly be collected 

again ; and as to the pupil, we have not had another 

like him since. 

Long. 

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus^ the 
philosopher - Emperor, showed by 
practice as well as by precept that the 
tranquil mind is not incompatible 
with a life of action. Destined from 
birth to stand at the head of a great 
empire engaged in distant wars, 
threatened by barbaric invasion, and 
not without internal dissention, he 
was prepared not only to command 
armies but to govern himself. For- 
tunately we are not without a clue to 
his methods — ^he not only had the best 

of teachers, but continued his train- 
so 



MARCUS AURELIUS 

ing all through his life. When we 
consider his labors, the claim of the 
busy man of to-day that he has ^^no 
time" seems almost frivolous. 

The thoughts of Marcus Aurelius 
(of which the following citations are 
from Long's translation) were writ- 
ten, not for self exploitation, or from 
delight in rounded periods, but for 
his own guidance. That he was in 
fact guided by his principles no bet- 
ter illustration offers than his mag- 
nanimity toward the adherents of one 
who would have usurped the throne 
of the Caesars. The observation of 
Long that fine thoughts and moral 
dissertations from men who have not 
worked and suffered may be read, but 
will be forgotten, seems to have been 
exemplified in the comparative ob- 
livion into which the philosophy of 
Epicurus has fallen. 

31 



WHY WORRY? 

It is with the ethical side of the 
philosophy of Marcus Aurelius that 
we are concerned, and with that por- 
tion only which bears on the question 
of mental equipoise. 

^' Begin the morning," he says, ^^by 
saying to thyself, I shall meet with 
the busybody, the ungrateful, arro- 
gant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All 
these things happen to them by rea- 
son of their ignorance of what is good 
and evil." 

With regard to the habit of seclu- 
sion common among the self-con- 
scious, he says: 

*^If thou didst ever see a hand cut 
off, or a foot, or a head, lying any- 
where apart from the rest of the 
body, such does a man make himself, 
as far as he can, who is not content 
with what happens, and separates 
himself from others, or does anv 

32 



MARCUS AURELIUS 

thing unsocial. Suppose that thou 
hast detached thyself from the 
natural unity — for thou wast made 
by nature a part, but now thou hast 
cut thyself off — yet here there is this 
beautiful provision, that it is in thy 
power again to unite thyself. God 
has allowed this to no other part, 
after it has been separated and cut 
asunder, to come together again. But 
consider the kindness by which he has 
distinguished man, for he has put it 
in his power not to be separated at all 
from the universal ; and when he has 
been separated, he has allowed him 
to return and to resume his place as a 
part." 

On the futile foreboding which 
plays so large a part in the tribulation 
of the worrier, he says : 

^^Do not disturb thyself by think- 
ing of the whole of thy life. Let not 

3 33 



WHY WORRY? 

thy thoughts at once embrace all the 
various troubles which thou mayest 
expect to befall thee; but on every 
occasion ask thyself, What is there 
in this which is intolerable and past 
bearing? for thou wilt be ashamed to 
confess. In the next place remember 
that neither the future nor the past 
pains thee, but only the present. But 
this is reduced to a very little, if thou 
only circumscribest it, and chidest 
thy mind, if it is unable to hold out 
against even this." Again: **Let 
not future things disturb thee, for 
thou wilt come to them, if it shall be 
necessary, having with thee the same 
reason which now thou usest for 
present things." 

On the dismissal of useless fret, 
and concentration upon the work in 
hand, he says : 

^^ Labor not as one who is wretched, 

34 



MARCUS AURELIUS 

nor yet as one who would be pitied or 
admired; but direct thy will to one 
thing only, to put thyself in motion 
and to check thyself, as the social rea- 
son requires." 

Regarding senseless fears he coun- 
sels: 

^^What need is there of suspicious 
fear, since it is in thy power to in- 
quire what ought to be done? And 
if thou seest clear, go by this way con- 
tent, without turning back: but if 
thou dost not see clear, stop and take 
the best advisers. But if any other 
things oppose thee, go on according 
to thy powers with due consideration, 
keeping to that which appears to be 
just. For it is best to reach this ob- 
ject, and if thou dost fail, let thy 
failure be in attempting this. He 
who follows reason in all things is 
both tranquil and active at the same 

35 



WHY WORRY? 

time, and also cheerful and collected." 

On irritation at tlie conduct of 
others : 

^^When thou art offended with any 
man's shameless conduct, immedi- 
ately ask thyself. Is it possible, then, 
that shameless men should not be in 
the world? It is not possible. Do 
not, then, require what is impossible. 
For this man also is one of those 
shameless men who must of necessity 
be in the world. Let the same con- 
siderations be present in thy mind 
in the case of the knave and the faith- 
less man, and of every man who does 
wrong in any way." 

Regarding the hypochondriacal ten- 
dency he reverts to Epicurus, thus: 

*^ Epicurus says. In my sickness 
my conversation was not about my 
bodily sufferings, nor did I talk on 
such subjects to those who visited me ; 

36 



MARCUS AURELIUS 

but I continued to discourse on the 
nature of things as before, keeping to 
this main point, how the mind, while 
participating in such movements as 
go on in the poor flesh, shall be free 
from perturbations and maintain its 
proper good. . . . Do, then, the same 
that he did both in sickness, if thou 
art sick, and in any other circum- 
stances ; . . . but to be intent only on 
that which thou art now doing and 
on the instrument by which thou 
doest it." 

These quotations will serve to show 
the trend of the reflections of this re- 
markable man. After reviewing this 
epitome of ethical philosophy I might 
stop and counsel the worrier to study 
the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius and 
other philosophers, whose practical 
suggestions are similar, notwith- 
standing their diversity of views re- 

37 



WHY WORRY? 

garding the ultimate object of the 
training. I shall venture, however, to 
elaborate the subject from the pres- 
ent view-point, even though the prin- 
ciples of Marcus Aurelius are as 
applicable now as they were in the 
days of the Roman Empire. 

No reminder is needed of the 
wealth and efficacy of suggestion in 
the Book which contains the state- 
ment that ^Hhe Kingdom of God is 
within you,'' and that ^^A merry 
heart doeth good like a medicine ; but 
a broken spirit drieth the bones." 
One of its suggestions was paralleled 
by the philosopher-poet when he 
wrote : 

" Latius regnes avidum domando 
Spiritiim, quam si Libyam remotis 
Gadibus iungas et uterque Poenus 
Serviat uni." 



38 



IV. 

ANALYSIS OF WORRY 

Of these points the principal and most urgent is 
that which reaches the passions; for passion is pro- 
duced no otherwise than by a disappointment of 
one's desires and an incurring of one's aversions. 
It is this which introduces perturbations, tumults, 
misfortunes, and calamities; this is the spring of 
sorrow, lamentation and envy; this renders us en- 
vious and emulous, and incapable of hearing reason. 

Epictetus. 

Under this rather pretentious title 
an attempt is made to indicate certain 
elements of worry. No claim is made 
that the treatment of the subject is 
exhaustive. 

The motto '^ Don't "Worry" has in- 
spired many homilies. But the mere 
resolve to follow this guide to hap- 
piness will no more instantaneously 
free one from the meshes of worry 
than the resolve to perform a difficult 

39 



WHY WORRY? 

gymnastic feat will insure its imme- 
diate accomplisliment. 

The evils of worry as well as of its 
frequent associate, anger, have been 
dwelt upon by writers philosophical, 
religious, and medical. ^^ Worry,'' 
says one author, ^^is the root of all 
cowardly passions, — jealousy, fear, 
the belittling of self, and all the intro- 
spective forms of depression are the 
children of worry." The symptoms 
and the evil results seem to receive 
more elaborate and detailed attention 
than the treatment. ^^ Eliminate it," 
counsels this writer; '^ Don't worry," 
advises another. ^^Such advice is 
superficial," says their critic, *4t can 
only be subdued by our ascending 
into a higher atmosphere, where we 
are able to look do^vn and compre- 
hend the just proportions of life." 
''Cultivate a quiet and peaceful 

40 



ANALYSIS OF WORRY 

frame of mind," urges another; and 
still another advises us to *^ occupy 
the mind with better things, and the 
best — is a habit of confidence and 
repose." 

From such counsel the average in- 
dividual succeeds in extracting noth- 
ing tangible. The last writer of those 
I have quoted comes perhaps the 
nearest to something definite in di- 
recting us to occupy the mind with 
better things; in the suggestions I 
have to offer the important feature 
is the effort to replace one thought by 
another, though not necessarily by a 
better one. If we succeed in doing 
this, we are making a step toward 
acquiring the habit of confidence and 
repose. 

The simple admonition not to 
worry is like advising one not to walk 
awkwardly who has never learned 

41 



WHY WORRY? 

to walk otherwise. If we can find 
some of the simpler elements out of 
which worry is constructed, and can 
learn to direct our attack against 
these, the proposition ^^ Don't worry" 
will begin to assiune a tangible form. 

We can at least go back one step, 
and realize that it is by way of the 
unduly insistent thought that most of 
these faulty mental habits become es- 
tablished. It might be claimed that 
fear deserves first mention, but the 
insistent thought in a way includes 
fear, and in many cases is indepen- 
dent of it. 

The insistent thought magnifies by 
concentration of attention, and by 
repetition, the origin of the worry. If 
my thoughts dwell on my desire for 
an automobile this subject finally ex- 
cludes all others, and the automobile 
becomes, for the time being, the most 

42 



ANALYSIS OF WORRY 

important thing in the world, hence 
I worry. Into this worry conies no 
suggestion of fear — this emotion 
would be more appropriate, perhaps, 
if I acquired the automobile and 
attempted to run it. If, now, I 
have trained myself to concentrate 
my attention elsewhere before such 
thoughts become coercive, the auto- 
mobile quickly assumes its proper 
relation to other things, and there is 
no occasion for worry. This habit of 
mind once acquired regarding the un- 
essentials of life, it is remarkable how 
quickly it adapts itself to really im- 
portant matters. 

Take a somewhat more serious 
question. I fear I may make a 
blunder. If I harbor the thought, my 
mind is so filled with the disastrous 
consequences of the possible blunder 
that I finally either abandon the un- 

43 



WHY WORRY? 

dertaking or approach it with a trepi- 
dation that invites failure. If, on the 
other hand, I have learned to say that 
even if I make a blunder it will only 
add to my experience, then apply my- 
self whole-minded to the task, I have 
made a direct attack on worry. 

The qualification unduly is not to 
be forgotten ; a certain discrimination 
must be exercised before entirely con- 
demning the insistent thought. The 
insistent thought that one's family 
must be fed is not a morbid sign. In 
fact, he also errs who can eliminate 
this thought and enjoy the ball game. 
It is not for the deviate of this type 
that I am writing. Nevertheless, the 
over-solicitous victim of the '^New 
England Conscience" can almost af- 
ford to take a few lessons from the 
ne'er-do-weel. 

The practical bearing of this at- 

44 



ANALYSIS OF WORRY 

tempt to analyze worry is obvious. If 
it is through the insistent desire for 
an automobile that I worry, I must 
bring my training to bear, not on the 
worry, which is elusive, but on the 
desire, which is definite. I must 
fortify myself with what philosophy 
I can acquire, and must console my- 
self with such compensations as my 
situation may offer; and above all, I 
must get hiisy, and occupy hands and 
brain with something else. If, on my 
travels, I worry over the sluggish 
movement of the train, it is because 
of the insistent thought that I must 
arrive on time. In this event I 
should practice subduing the insistent 
thought, rather than vaguely direct 
my efforts against the worry. In the 
majority of cases I can bring myself 
to realize that the question of my 
arrival is not vital. Even in case I 

45 



WHY WORRY? 

am missing an important engagement 
I may modify the dominance of the 
thought by reflecting that I cannot 
expect to be wholly immune from the 
misfortunes of mankind ; it is due me, 
at least once in a lifetime, to miss an 
important engagement, — why fret 
because this happens to be the ap- 
pointed time? Why not occupy my 
thoughts more profitably than in re- 
hearsing the varied features of this 
unavoidable annoyance? 

If we fret about the weather it is 
because of an insistent desire that the 
weather shall conform to our idea of 
its seasonableness. If we complain of 
the chill of May it is not because the 
cold is really unbearable, but because 
we wonder if spring will ever come. 
If we fume on a hot day in July it is 
because the weather is altogether too 
seasonable to suit us. 

46 



ANALYSIS OF WORRY 

We spend far too mucli thought on 
the weather, a subject that really de- 
serves little attention except by those 
whose livelihood and safety depend 
upon it. Suppose a runaway passes 
the window at which we are sitting, 
with collar off, handkerchief to our 
heated brow, squirming to escape our 
moist and clinging garments, and be- 
ing generally miserable. We rush out 
of doors to watch his course, and for 
the next few minutes we do not know 
whether it is hot or cold, perspiring 
less during our exertions, I strongly 
suspect, than we did while sitting in 
the chair. At all events, it is obvious 
that our thoughts played quite as 
great a part in our discomfort as did 
the heat of the day. 

Suppose now, instead of devoting 
all our attention to the weather we 
should reason somewhat as follows: 

47 



WHY WORRY? 

As long as I live on this particular 
planet, I shall be subject perhaps 
three days out of four, to atmospheric 
conditions which do not suit me. Is 
it worth my while to fret during those 
three days and to make it up by being 
elated on the fourth? Why not oc- 
cupy myself with something else and 
leave the weather for those who have 
no other resource? Or, as someone 
has said, why not ^^make friends with 
the weather?" If one will cultivate 
this frame of mind he will be sur- 
prised to find that a certain physical 
relief will follow. In the first place, 
he will lessen the excessive perspira- 
tion which is the invariable accom- 
paniment of fret, and which in its 
turn produces more discomfort than 
the heat itself. 

We have selected, so far, the com- 
paratively unimportant sources of 

48 



ANALYSIS OF WORRY 

mental discomfort, fret, and worry. 
The reader who can truthfully say 
that such annoyances play no part in 
his mental tribulations may pass 
them and accept congratulations. The 
reader who cannot be thus con- 
gratulated, but who is impatient to 
attack the major sources of worry, 
must be reminded at this point that he 
must practice on the little worries 
before he can accomplish anything 
with the great. The method is the 
same. The philosophy that will make 
us content with the weather will do 
something toward establishing the 
mental poise which shall enable us to 
withstand with comparative equa- 
nimity the most tragic of misfortunes 
that may fall to our lot. 

To draw an example from the more 
serious disorders, let us consider the 
hypochondriac, who harbors the in- 

4 49 



WHY WORRY? 

sistent thought that he must be al- 
ways perfectly well, that each of his 
sensations must conform to his ideal, 
and that each function must follow 
regulations imposed by himself. If 
he can learn to ignore this thought by 
realizing that an acute illness is 
preferable to life-long mental cap- 
tivity; if he can learn to do what 
others do, and to concentrate his 
energies on outside affairs which shall 
displace the question of health ; if he 
can learn to say ^^What I am doing 
is more important than how I am 
feeling;^' he will have cured his 
hypochondria. 

In the foundation of the structure 
we are studying is found exaggerated 
self -consciousness. Whatever is said, 
done, or left undone, by others is 
analyzed by the worrier with refer- 
ence to its bearing on himself. If 

50 



ANALYSIS OF WORRY 

others are indifferent it depresses 
liim, if they appear interested they 
have an ulterior motive, if they look 
serious he must have displeased them, 
if they smile it is because he is ridicu- 
lous. That they are thinking of their 
own affairs is the last thought to enter 
his mind. 

I suppose it would be an affectation 
for any of us to deny that, as far as 
we are concerned, we are the centre 
of the universe. This conceit does us 
no harm so long as we remember that 
there are as many centres of the uni- 
verse as there are people, cats, mice 
and other thinking animals. When we 
forget this our troubles begin. If I 
enter a strange shop and find they 
desire security, need I take this as a 
reflection on my credit? Need I ex- 
pect to be invited to every entertain- 
ment I should like to attend, and to be 

51 



WHY WORRY? 

excused from those that bore me, and 
shall I make no allowance for the atti- 
tude of my host? Is it not rather 
egotistic for me to suppose that 
others are vitally interested in the 
fact that I blush, tremble, or am awk- 
ward ? Why then should I allow my 
conduct to be influenced by such 
trivial matters 'F 

The order of training is, then, gen- 
erally, to modify our self -conscious- 
ness by externalizing our thoughts 
and broadening our interests; speci- 
fically, to eliminate the unduly in- 
sistent habit of thought. 

This analysis of worry and allied 
mental states may facilitate such 
training, but the practical value of 
the suggestions does not depend upon 
the acceptance of these theoretical 
considerations. 



52 



V. 

WORRY AND OBSESSION 

So much are men enured in their miserable estate, 
that no condition is so poore, but they will accept; 
so they may continue in the same. 

Florio's Montaigne. 

^^You may as well be eaten by the 
fishes as by the worms," said the 
daughter of a naval commander to me 
one day, when discussing the perils 
of the sea. Such philosophy, applied 
to each of the vexatious and danger- 
ous situations of daily life, would go 
far toward casting out worry. 

We have already referred to two 
important elements at the foimda- 
tion, and in the framework, of the 
elaborate superstructures we rear 
with such material as worry, doubts, 
fears and scruples. The first is exag- 

53 



WHY WORRY? 



gerated self -consciousness, the second 
the tendency to succumb to the com- 
pelling thought or impluse, tech- 
nically termed oisession. 

With regard to self -consciousness, 
the worrier wdll generally realize that 
even as a child he was exceptionally 
sensitive to criticism, censure, ridi- 
cule and neglect. He was prone to 
brood over his wrongs, to play the 
martyr, and to suffer wdth peculiar 
keenness the ^' slings and arrows of 
outrageous fortime.'' I remember 
once leaving the table on account of 
some censure or careless remark. I 
fancied I had thrown the whole 
family into a panic of contrition. On 
the first opportunity, I asked what 
they had said about it, and was told 
that they had apparently not noticed 
my departure. This salutary lesson 
prevented repetition of the act. 



54 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

To the self-conscious person the 
mere entrance into a public vehicle 
may prove an ordeal. It is hard for 
him to realize that the general gaze 
has no peculiar relation to himself, 
and that if the gaze is prolonged this 
is due to no peculiarity of his beyond 
the blush or the trepidation that be- 
trays his feeling. If he can acquire 
indifference to this feature of his case, 
through the reflection that to others 
it is only a passing incident, the blush 
and the trepidation will promptly 
disappear, and a step will have been 
taken towards gaining the self-con- 
trol for which he aims. 

The usual cause of stage-fright is 
exaggerated self -consciousness. The 
sufferer from stage-fright can hardly 
fail to be a worrier. A certain shy- 
ness, it would seem, may also result 
from too acute a consciousness of 

55 



WHY WORRY? 

one's audience, as in the case of 
Tennyson, whom Benson quotes thus : 

^' I am never the least shy before 
great men. Each of them has a per- 
sonality for which he or she is re- 
sponsible; but before a crowd which 
consists of many personalities, of 
which I know nothing, I am infi- 
nitely shy. The great orator cares 
nothing about all this. I think of the 
good man, and the bad man, and the 
mad man, that may be among them, 
and can say nothing. He takes them 
all as one man. He sways them as 
one man." 

This, I take it, hardly spelled stage- 
fright. At the same time, it is im- 
probable that one so sensitive to 
criticism meant to convey the impres- 
sion that it was of his audience alone 
he thought in shrinking from the 
effort. 

56 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

It appears that Washington Irving 
suffered from actual stage-fright. 

In the Library edition of Irving 's 
works appears the following anecdote 
from the reminiscences of Mrs. Julia 
Ward Howe, then a young woman of 
twenty-three : 

''I was present, with other ladies, 
at a public dinner given in honor of 
Charles Dickens by prominent citi- 
zens of New York. The ladies were 
not bidden to the feast, but were al- 
lowed to occupy a small ante-room 
which, through an open door, com- 
manded a view of the tables. When 
the speaking was about to begin, a 
message came suggesting that we take 
possession of some vacant seats at the 
great table. This we were glad to do. 
Washington Irving was president of 
the evening, and upon him devolved 
the duty of inaugurating the proceed- 

57 



WHY WORRY? 

ings by an address of welcome to the 
distinguished guest. People who sat 
near me whispered, ^He'U break 
down, — ^he always does.' Mr. Irving 
rose and uttered a sentence or two. 
His friends interrupted him by ap- 
plause, which was intended to encour- 
age him, but which entirely overthrew 
his self-possession. He hesitated, 
stammered, and sat down, saying, *I 
cannot go on.' " 

Cavendish, the chemist, suffered 
from a constitutional shyness attrib- 
utable only to self-consciousness. He 
is said to have carried so far his aver- 
sion to contact with others, outside of 
his colleagues, that his dinner was 
always ordered by means of a note, 
and instant dismissal awaited the 
female domestic who should venture 
within his range of vision. 

Lombroso cites, among his ^'Men 

58 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

of Genius," quite a list — Corneille, 
Descartes, Virgil, Addison, La Fon- 
taine, Dryden, Manzoni, and Newton 
— of those who could not express 
themselves in public. Whatever part 
self -consciousness played in the indi- 
vidual case, we must class the pecu- 
liarity among the defects, not signs, 
of genius. ''A tender heel makes no 
man an Achilles." 

To the second faulty habit, obses- 
sion, I wish to devote special atten- 
tion. This word we have already 
defined as an unduly insistent and 
compulsive thought, habit of mind, or 
tendency to action. The person so 
burdened is said to be obsessed. 

Few children are quite free from 
obsession. Some must step on stones ; 
others must walk on, or avoid, cracks ; 
some must ascend the stairs with the 

59 



WHY WORRY? 

right foot first ; many must kick posts 
or touch objects a certain number of 
times. Some must count the windows, 
pictures, and figures on the wall- 
paper; some must bite the nails or 
pull the eye-winkers. Consider the 
nail-biter. It cannot be said that he 
toils not, but to what end? Merely 
to gratify an obsession. He nibbles a 
little here and a little there, he 
frowns, elevates his elbow, and inverts 
his finger to reach an otherwise inac- 
cessible corner. Does he enjoy it? 
No, not exactly; but he would be 
miserable if he discontinued. 

An unusual, but characteristic ob- 
session is told by a lady in describing 
her own childhood. She thought that 
on retiring she must touch nothing 
with her hands, after she had washed 
them, until she touched the inside of 
the sheets. In case she failed she 

60 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

must return and wash the hands 
again. The resulting manoeuvres are 
still fresh in her mind, particularly 
when her sister had preceded her to 
bed and she had to climb the foot- 
board. 

It is during childhood that we form 
most of the automatic habits which 
are to save time and thought in later 
life, and it is not surprising that some 
foolish habits creep in. As a rule, 
children drop these tendencies at 
need, just as they drop the roles 
assumed in play, though they are 
sometimes so absorbing as to cause 
inconvenience. An interesting in- 
stance was that of the boy who had to 
touch every one wearing anything 
red. On one occasion his whole family 
lost their train because of the preva- 
lence of this color among those wait- 
ing in the station. 

61 



WHY WORRY? 

The longer these tendencies are re- 
tained in adult life, the greater the 
danger of their becoming coercive; 
and so far as the well-established case 
is concerned the obsessive act must be 
performed, though the business, so- 
cial, and political world should come 
to a stand-still. Among the stories 
told in illustration of compulsive ten- 
dency in the great, may be instanced 
the touching of posts, and the placing 
of a certain foot first, in the case of 
Dr. Johnson, who, it appears, would 
actually retrace his steps and repeat 
the act which failed to satisfy his re- 
quirements, with the air of one with 
something off his mind. 

A child who must kick posts is 
father to the man who cannot eat an 
egg which has been boiled either more 
or less than four minutes ; who cannot 
work without absolute silence; who 

62 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

cannot sleep if steam-pipes crackle; 
and who must straighten out all the 
tangles of his life, past, present, and 
future, before he can close his eyes in 
slumber or take a vacation. The boy 
Carlyle, proud, shy, sensitive, and 
pugnacious, was father to the man 
who made war upon the neighbor's 
poultry, and had a room, proof 
against sound, specially constructed 
for his literary labors. 

The passive obsessions are pecu- 
liarly provocative of worry. Such 
are extreme aversions to certain 
animals, foods, smells, sounds, and 
sights, or insistent discomfort if af- 
fairs are not ordered to our liking. 
!A gentleman once told me that at 
the concert he did not mind if his 
neighbor followed the score, but when 
he consulted his programme during 

63 



WHY WORRY? 

the performance it distressed Mm 
greatly. 

Such instances illustrate the fact 
that when our obsessions rule us it is 
not the noise or the sight, but our idea 
of the fitness of things, that deter- 
mines the degree of our annoyance. 
A person w^ho cannot endure the 
crackling of the steam-pipe can listen 
with pleasure to the crackling of an 
open fire or the noise of a running 
brook. 

It is said that the sensitive and 
emotional Erasmus had so delicate a 
digestion that he could neither eat 
fish nor endure the smell of it ; but we 
are led to suspect that obsession 
played a part in his troubles when we 
further learn that he could not bear 
an iron stove in the room in which he 
worked, but had to have either a 
porcelain stove or an open fire. 

64 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

If we can trust the sources from 
which Charles Eeade drew his deduc- 
tions regarding the character of the 
parental stock, Erasmus came fairly 
by his sensitive disposition. In ' ' The 
Cloister and the Hearth" we find the 
father of Erasmus, fleeing from his 
native land, in fear of his life on ac- 
count of a crime he thought he had 
committed, frozen, famished and ex- 
hausted, unable to enter the door of a 
friendly inn on account of his aver- 
sion to the issuing odors. Forced by 
his sufferings at last to enter the inn, 
he visits each corner in turn, analyz- 
ing its peculiar smell and choosing 
finally the one which seems to him the 
least obnoxious. 

I have heard somewhere, but can- 
not place, the story of a prominent 
writer who was so disturbed by the 
mechanical lawn-mower of his neigh- 

5 65 



WHY WORRY? 

bor tliat he insisted upon the privilege 
of defraying the expense of its re- 
placement by the sc}i]he. 

Peculiar sensitiveness to sights, 
sounds and smells seems to be a com- 
mon attribute of genius. This sort of 
sensitiveness has even been credited 
with being the main-spring of genius, 
but it is improbable that the curbing 
of such aversions would in any way 
endanger it. However this may be, 
such supersensitiveness ill becomes 
the rest of us, and these extreme aver- 
sions surely clog, rather than acceler- 
ate, our efforts. 

The natural tendency of the healthy 
mind is to accustom itself to new 
sensations, as the ring on the finger, 
or the spectacles on the nose. The 
obsessive individual resists this ten- 
dency; he starts with the fixed idea 

66 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

that he cannot stand the annoyance, 
his resentment increases, and his 
sensations become more, instead of 
less, acute. His reaction to criticism, 
slight, and ridicule is similar; he is 
prepared to start, blush, and show 
anger on moderate provocation, and 
can often reproduce both the sen- 
sation and its accompanying phy- 
sical signs by merely recalling the 
circumstance. 

The passive as well as the active 
obsessions can be overcome by culti- 
vating the commonplace, or average 
normal, attitude, and resolving grad- 
ually to accustom one's self to the 
disagreeable. This change of atti- 
tude can be made in adult life as well 
as in youth. *^You cannot teach an 
old dog new tricks," we are told. 
The reason is not that the old dog 
cannot learn them, but that he does 

67 



WHY WORRY? 

not want to. I met in Germany a 
British matron who w^as obsessed 
with the belief that she could not 
learn the language. At the end of 
four years' sojourn she entered a 
store and asked the price of an article. 

^'Four marks," was the answer. 

'^How much in English money?" 
she inquired. 

''Why, madam, a mark is the same 
as a shilling." 

''I don't know anything about that ; 
how much is it in English?" 

''Four shillings." 

"Ah, quite so ; you might have told 
me at once." 

Experience has shown that no time 
in life precludes the acquirement of 
new knowledge and new habits by one 
who thinks it worth while to make the 
attempt. The elderly person will be 
surprised at his progress if he will 

68 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

bring to bear upon a new subject a 
mind free from doubts of its useful- 
ness, doubts of his own ability, worry 
lest he is wasting valuable time, 
regrets for the past and plans for the 
future. 

It is not always possible to say just 
where useful habit merges into obses- 
sion. A certain individual, we will 
say, invariably puts on the left shoe 
before the right. This is a useful 
habit, fixed by constant repetition, 
useful because it relieves the brain of 
conscious effort. But suppose he de- 
cides some morning to put on the 
right shoe before the left; this new 
order so offends his sense of the fit- 
ness of things that he finds it hard to 
proceed ; if he perseveres, his feet feel 
wrong to him; the discomfort grows 
until finally he is impelled to remove 
the shoes and replace them in the 

69 



. WHY WORRY? 

usual order. In this case an act which 
started as a useful habit has been re- 
placed by an obsession. 

Suppose, again, a person obsessed 
by the fear of poison is prevented 
from washing his hands before eat- 
ing. He sits down, perhaps, fully 
intending to proceed as if nothing had 
happened, but the thought occurs to 
him that he mav have touched some- 
thing poisonous, though his reason 
tells him this is most improbable. He 
reviews the events of the day and can 
find no suggestion of poison ; still the 
thought of poison obtrudes itself, and 
he finds it impossible to put anything 
which he touches into his mouth. He 
next wonders if he has not already 
put something into his mouth. This 
thought produces a mental panic, the 
blood moimts to his head, he becomes 
incapable of coherent thought or 

70 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

speech, and the task of finishing his 
dinner would now be beyond his 
power even if he had not lost all taste 
for it. 

Such illustrations of obsession in 
daily life, by no means rare, could be 
multiplied indefinitely, and may be 
perhaps better appreciated than the 
text-book illustration of the man who 
neglected to flick off with his whip a 
certain stone from the top of a wall, 
and who could not sleep until he had 
returned to the spot and performed 
the act. 

Suppose a man has always worn 
high boots and is accustomed to a feel- 
ing of warmth about the ankles. The 
desire for w^arm ankles may finally 
so dominate him that he not only can- 
not wear low shoes in mid-summer, 
but he cannot wear slippers, even in 
a warm room; and finally, perhaps, 



WHY WORRY? 

finds that he must wear woollen socks 
to bed. By this time the desire for a 
certain sensation is in a fair way to 
become an obsession. When you as- 
sure him that many wear low shoes 
throughout the winter, he asks if 
their ankles really feel warm. That is 
not the question. The question is, can 
one accustom himself to the ankles 
feeling cool, just as he accustoms him- 
self to his face feeling cool. If he 
can, he has conquered a sensory obses- 
sion, and has made a step toward fit- 
ting himself to meet more serious 
vicissitudes with equanimity. 

Similar instances can be adduced 
in all realms of sensation, both gen- 
eral and special. One person cannot 
bear the light, and wears blue glasses ; 
another cannot breathe out-door air, 
and wears a respirator ; another can- 

72 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

not bear to see a person rock or to 
hear a person drum. 

If a family or circle of friends is so 
constituted that some are obsessed to 
do certain things and others are ob- 
sessed not to stand them the founda- 
tion is laid for a degree of irritability 
inconsistent with mental health. Mrs. 
X. simply cannot stand hearing 
Mr. X. tap the floor, and if he con- 
tinues, her discomfort becomes acute ; 
the sound so dominates her that she 
can think of nothing else and can ac- 
complish nothing until the sound is 
stopped. She can stand anything but 
that. The daughter. Miss X., hardly 
hears the tapping, and is irritated and 
impatient to the last degree on ac- 
count of her mother's ^* silly'' notion. 
What Miss X. simply cannot bear is 
hearing her brother continually clear 
his throat, and if he does not stop she 

73 



WHY WORRY? 

must leave the room or ''go wild.'' 
Unfortunately, meantime, Mr. X. is 
so obsessed to tap the floor that he 
cannot follow his task without it, and 
Master X. must clear his throat every 
few moments with a peculiar note be- 
cause he ^*has catarrh." 

Here we have a common starting- 
point for family discomfort, and here 
we have a clue to the advice of the 
physician who advises isolation as a 
step toward the cure of the member 
of the family who first breaks down, 
not simply mider the stress of occupa- 
tion, but of occupation plus the wear 
and tear of minor but constant 
sources of irritation. 

It is said that the victim of jiu 
jitsu, by breaking one hold, places 
himself in the greater danger from 
the next. Similarly, after having 

74 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

conquered a few obsessions, one is 
overwhelmed with the obsession to set 
every one straight. Soukanhoff was 
right in warning the obsessive to be- 
ware of pedantry. 

The question here presents itself 
whether this line of thought does not 
foster, rather than lessen, the pedan- 
try and the self -study which it is 
intended to combat. Why not simply 
drop the worry and the doubt without 
further argument? The difficulty is 
that the mental processes of the over- 
scrupulous person are such that he 
cannot summarily drop a habit of 
thought. He must reason himself out 
of it. There is no limit to his ability 
if properly directed ; he can gradually 
modify all his faulty tendencies, and 
may even finally acquire the habit of 
automatically dismissing worry, but 
it would be too much to expect that he 

75 



WHY WORRY? 

suddenly change his very nature at 
command. 

Soukanhoff's description of obses- 
sives is peculiarly apt: ^^over-scrupu- 
lous, disquieted over trifles, indecisive 
in action, and anxious about their 
affairs. They are given early to mor- 
bid introspection, and are easily wor- 
ried about their own indispositions 
or the illnesses of their friends. They 
are often timorous and apprehensive, 
and prone to pedantism. The moral 
sentiments are pronounced in most 
cases, and if they are, as a rule, some- 
what exigent and egotistic, they have 
a lively sense of their own defects.'' 

A common obsession is the compul- 
sion to dwell upon the past, to repro- 
duce the circumstances, and painfully 
to retrace the steps which we took in 
coming to an erroneous decision 
which led to a foolish, unnecessary, or 

76 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

perhaps even a wrong decision. One 
of my earliest impressions in golf was 
the remark of a veteran who was good 
enough to make a round with me. ^ ^ If 
I had only approached better, I 
should have made that hole in five/' 
I remarked, after taking seven 
strokes for a hole. 

^^ Perhaps not," he replied; * 'if you 
had approached better^ perhaps you 
would have putted worse and taken 
eight strokes for the hole. At all 
events, that hole is ancient history 
now, and you will play this one better 
if you leave that one alone." 

He little realized how many times 
his advice would recur to me else- 
where than on the links. Eetrospec- 
tive worry can be absolutely elimin- 
ated from the most obsessive mind 
by the practice of the veteran's 
philosophy. 

77, 



WHY WORRY? 

Mercier says the greatest intel- 
lectual gift is the ability to forget. 

The conscientious self - analyst 
spends too much time in weighing his 
ability or inability to perform some 
task. Between his fear, his worry 
over the past, and his indecision 
whether the task should be attempted, 
he starts with an overwhelming 
handicap. If he learns to say, ' ^ Other 
people fail ; it will not matter if I do 
this time," he will find the task al- 
ready half accomplished. 

The Eev. Francis Tiffany has ob-' 
served that if a ship could think, and 
should imagine itself submerged by 
all the waves between here and 
Europe, it would dread to cut its 
moorings ; but in reality it has to meet 
but one wave at a time. 

The tendency of the average Amer- 
ican in this bustling age, whether he 

78 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

is obsessive or not, is to live at least 
several hours in advance. On the 
train he takes no comfort and makes 
no observations, for his mind is upon 
his destination rather than on his 
journey. 

Though the immediate object of 
these chapters is the promotion of the 
mental, and indirectly the physical, 
health of the individual, I cannot for- 
bear referring to the effect of this 
training on the position of the indi- 
vidual in society and his relation 
toward his surroundings. 

The endeavor to overcome obses- 
sions is likely to be ignored by two 
classes: the self -centered individuals 
who see no reason for learning what 
they do not want to learn, and the 
individuals who have no time for, or 
interest in, self -training because of 

79 



WHY WORRY? 

absorption in subjects of wider rela- 
tion, as art, or science, or reform. The 
pMlosopby of Haeckel applies to 
both : 

^^Man belongs to the social verte- 
brates, and has, therefore, like all 
social animals, two sets of duties — 
first to himself, and secondly to the 
society to which he belongs. The 
former are the behests of self-love, or 
egoism, the latter love for one's fel- 
lows, or altruism. The two sets of 
precepts are equally just, equally 
natural, and equally indispensable. 
If a man desires to have the advan- 
tage of living in an organized com- 
munity, he has to consult not only his 
own fortune, but also that of the so- 
ciety, and of the ^neighbors' who form 
the society. He must realize that its 
prosperity is his own prosperity, and 

80 



WORRY AND OBSESSION 

that it cannot suffer without his own 
injury." 

The individual who is ruled by his 
obsessions not only paves the way for 
needless and ultimate breakdown, but 
is in danger of gradually narrowing 
his field of usefulness and pleasure 
until he is in little better case than 
Simeon Stylites, who spent nearly 
half a century on the top of a monu- 
ment. Nor has he even Simeon's con- 
solation that he could come down if he 
chose; for it seems that the authori- 
ties sent messengers demanding his 
return, with orders to let him stay if 
he showed willingness to come down 
— and he stayed. 



81 



VI. 

THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

Jatgeir. I needed sorrow; others there may be 
who need faith, or joy — or doubt 

King Skule. Doubt as well? 

Jatgeir. Ay; but then must the doubter be strong 
and sound. 

King Skule. And whom call you the unsound 
doubter ? 

Jatgeir. He who doubts of his own doubt. 

King Skule (slowly). That methinks were death. 

Jatgeir. 'T is worse; 't is neither day nor night. 

King Skule (quickly, as if shaking off his 
thoughts). Where are my weapons? I will fight 
and act, not think. 

Ibsen: The Pretenders, Act iv. 

A GENTLEMAN oiicG told me that lie 
rarely passed another in the street 
without wondering if he had not ac- 
costed him in an improper manner. 
He knew very well that he had not, 
but the more he dw^elt upon the possi- 
bility, the more doubtful he became, 
until the impulse to settle the question 

82 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

became so strong that he would re- 
trace his steps and inquire. He asked 
if nux vomica would help this 
trouble ! I told him he needed mental 
training. 

*^I have tried that," he answered. 
*'I keep saying to myself, ^I will not 
think of it,' but it is no use ; my head 
becomes hot, my sight blurred, my 
thoughts confused, and the only relief 
I find is to settle the question." 

I tried to point out the direction in 
which he was tending, and told him 
he must remind himself that even if 
he had accosted another improperly, 
it was a trifling matter compared to 
the injury to himself of giving way 
to this compulsion ; moreover, the im- 
pression he would make upon the 
other by going back would be even 
worse than that of having so accosted 
him ; and, finally, he must dwell upon 

83 



WHY WORRY? 

the prohability that he had not of- 
fended the man, instead of the possi- 
hility that he had. Having pursued 
this line of thought, he must force 
himself to think of something else un- 
til the besetting impulse was obliter- 
ated. I suggested that if a baseball 
player should become incapacitated 
for the game, he would not lessen his 
disappointment by reiterating, ^^I 
will not think of baseball," but if he 
persistently turned his thoughts and 
his practice to billiards he might in 
time forget baseball. 

'^I never played baseball," he re- 
plied, *^and don't even know the 
rules." 

This represents an extreme case of 
** doubting folly" a case in which the 
victim could no longer concentrate his 
thoughts on the simplest proposition 

84 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

outside the narrow circle to which his 
doubts had restricted him. 

If we once allow ourselves to won- 
der whether we have turned off the 
water, enclosed the check, or mailed 
the letter, it is but a step to an un- 
comfortable frame of mind which can 
be relieved only by investigating the 
matter. This compulsion once ac- 
ceded to, it becomes more and more 
easy to succumb. The next step is to 
blur, by constant repetition, the men- 
tal image of the act. In extreme 
cases the doubter, after turning the 
gas on and off a dozen times, is finally 
in doubt whether he can trust his own 
senses. A certain officer in a bank 
never succeeded in reaching home 
after closing hours without returning 
to try the door of the bank. Upon 
finding it locked, he would unlock it 
and disappear within, to open the 

85 



WHY WORRY? 

vault, inspect the securities, and lock 
them up again. I once saw a victim 
of this form of doubt spend at least 
ten minutes in writing a check, and 
ten minutes more inspecting it, and, 
after all, he had spelled his own name 
wrong ! 

Constant supervision only impairs 
acts which should have become auto- 
matic. We have all heard of the 
centipede who could no longer pro- 
ceed upon his journey when it oc- 
curred to him to question which foot 
he should next advance. 

To other doubts are often added the 
doubt of one's own mental balance; 
but it is a long step from these faulty 
habits of mind to real mental un- 
balance, which involves an inability 
to plan and carry out a line of con- 
duct consistent with one's station. 

It took a young man at least fifteen 

86 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

minutes, in my presence, to button his 
waistcoat. He felt the lower button 
to reassure himself, then proceeded to 
the next. He then returned to the 
lower one, either distrusting his 
previous observation, or fearing it 
had become unbuttoned. He then 
held the lower two with one hand 
while he buttoned the third with the 
other. When this point was reached 
he called his sight to the aid of his 
feeling, and glued his eyes to the 
lower while he buttoned the upper, 
unbuttoning many meantime, to as- 
sure himself that he had buttoned 
them. This young man said he would 
sometimes stop on his way to the store 
in doubt whether he was on the right 
street, a doubt not quieted either by 
reading the sign or by asking a 
stranger, because the doubt would ob- 
trude itself whether he could trust his 

87 



WHY WORRY? 

sight and his hearing, indeed, whether 
he was really there or dreaming. 
Even this victim of extreme doubting 
folly conducted his business success- 
fully so long as I knew him, and so 
comported himself in general as to 
attract no further comment than that 
he was *^fussy." 

These doubts lead to chronic inde- 
cision. How often, in deciding which 
of two tasks to take up, we waste the 
time which would have sufficed for 
the accomplishment of one, if not 
both. 

The doubt and the indecision result 
directly from over-conscientiousness. 
It is because of an undue anxiety to 
do the right thing, even in trivial 
matters, that the doubter ponders in- 
definitely over the proper sequence of 
two equally important (or unimpor- 
tant) tasks. In the majority of in- 

88 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

stances it is the right thing for him 
to pounce upon either. If he pounces 
upon the wrong one, and completes it 
without misgiving, he has at least 
accomplished something in the way of 
mental training. The chances are, 
moreover, that the harm done by do- 
ing the wrong thing first was not to 
be compared to the harm of giving 
way to his doubt, and either drifting 
into a state of ineffective revery or 
fretting himself into a frenzy of 
anxious uncertainty. 

A gentleman once told me that after 
mailing a letter he would often linger 
about the box until the postman ar- 
rived, and ask permission to inspect 
his letter, ostensibly to see if he had 
put on the stamp, but in fact to reas- 
sure himself that he had really mailed 
the missive, although he knew per- 
fectly well that he had done so. The 

89 



WHY WORRY? 

life of the chronic doubter is full of 
these small deceits, though in most 
matters such persons are exception- 
ally conscientious. 

This form of over-solicitude is 
peculiarly liable to attack those in 
whose hands are important affairs af- 
fecting the finances, the lives, or the 
health of others. I have known more 
than one case of the abandonment of 
a chosen occupation on account of the 
constant anxiety entailed by doubts 
of this nature. Nor are these doubts 
limited to the question whether one 
has done or left undone some par- 
ticular act. An equally insistent 
doubt is that regarding one's general 
fitness for the undertaking. The 
doubter may spend upon this ques- 
tion more time than it would take 
to acquire the needed facility and 
experience. 

00 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

Some one has said there are two 
things that no one should worry 
about: first, the thing that can't be 
helped; second, the thing that can. 
This is peculiarly true of the former. 

Reflection upon the past is wise; 
solicitude concerning it is an anach- 
ronism. Suppose one has accepted 
a certain position and finds himself 
in doubt of his fitness for that posi- 
tion. Nothing can be more important 
than for him to decide upon his next 
line of conduct. Shall he resign or 
continue ? Is he fit for the position, 
or, if not, can he acquire the fitness 
without detriment to the ofiice*? 
These are legitimate doubts. But the 
doubter who finds himself in this pre- 
dicament adds to these legitimate 
doubts the question, ^^ Ought I to have 
accepted the office?" This is the 
doubt he must learn to eliminate. He 

91 



WHY WORRY? 

must remind himself that he has ac- 
cepted the position, whether rightly 
or wrongly, and that the acceptance 
is ancient history. The question what 
shall he do next is sufficiently weighty 
to occupy all his attention without 
loading his mind with anxious doubts 
regarding the irrevocable past. 

Suppose, in fact, the doubter has 
made a mistake ; how shall he banish 
the worry? By reminding himself 
that others have made mistakes, why 
should not he, and that it is somewhat 
egotistic on his part to insist that, 
whatever others may do, he must do 
everything right. If this line of 
reasoning fails to console him, let him 
think of the greater mistakes he 
might have made. A financial mag- 
nate was once asked how he succeeded 
in keeping his mind free from worry. 
He replied, by contemplating the two 

92 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

worst things that could happen to 
him : losing all his property and going 
to jail. He had learned the lesson 
that one thought can he driven out 
only hy another. 

With regard to immediate doubts. 
If the over-scrupulous business or 
professional man, worn out after an 
exacting day's work, will stop and 
reflect, he will realize that much of his 
exhaustion is due to his having filled 
the day with such doubts as whether 
he is doing the wrong thing, or the 
right thing at the wrrong time, 
whether he or someone else will miss 
an appointment or fail to meet obli- 
gations, and whether he or his assist- 
ants may make blunders. 

Let him resolve some morning that 
he will proceed that day from task to 
task without allowing such thoughts 
to intrude. If he does so he will find 

93 



WHY WORRY? 

that lie has succeeded in his work at 
least as well as usual, and that he is 
comparatively fresh in the evening. 
Why not try this every day? 

So far we have only considered the 
most obvious and simple among the 
evidences of doubting folly. A still 
more obstinate tendency of the 
doubter is the insistent habit inter- 
minably to argue over the simplest 
proposition, particularly regarding 
matters pertaining to the health, com- 
fort, and life of the individual him- 
self. A certain patient, of this type, 
attempts to describe to his physician 
a peculiar, hitherto undescribed, and 
even now indescribable sensation 
^ through his right lung." He traces 
this sensation to what he believes to 
have been the absorption of a poison 
some years ago. His line of reason- 

94 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

ing is somewhat as follows: 1. The 
drug was a poison. 2. If he absorbed 
it he must have been poisoned. 3. If 
he was poisoned then, he is poisoned 
now. 4. There is no proof that such 
a poison cannot produce such a sensa- 
tion. 5. He has the sensation. Con- 
clusion : He is suffering from poison. 
In support of this proposition he will 
spend hours with anyone who will 
listen. The physician who allows 
himself to be drawn into the contro- 
versy speedily finds himself, instead 
of giving advice to listening ears, in- 
volved in a battle of wits in which he 
is quite likely to come off second best. 
He assures the patient, for example, 
that, as far as scientific methods can 
establish the fact, the lung is sound. 
^^But has science established every- 
thing? And if it had, is such nega- 
tive evidence to be weighed against 

95 



WHY WORRY? 

the positive evidence of the sensation 
in my lung? " 

^'But the sensation may not be in 
your lung." 

'^Can you prove that it is not in my 
lung ? ' ' Folly scores ! 

On being urged to direct his atten- 
tion to some other part of his body, 
he promptly inquires, 

**How can I direct my thoughts 
elsewhere, when the sensation is there 
to occupy my attention ?'' Obviously 
he can not without changing his men- 
tal attitude, so folly scores again. 

He is assured that if the poison had 
been absorbed the effects would have 
passed away long before this time. 

^^But do the effects of poison 
always pass away? And can you 
prove that they have passed away in 
my case? Is not the sensation posi- 
tive evidence, since you have allowed 

96 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

that you cannot prove that the sensa- 
tion does not come from the poison T* 

Folly scores again, but the victory 
is an empty one. The vicious circle 
continues: Attention magnifies sen- 
sation — sensation produces fear — 
fear increases attention ; and through- 
out runs the insistent thought that 
his sensations shall conform to his 
ideal. 

If the discussion of such compara- 
tively tangible matters can occupy a 
large part of one's attention, imagine 
the result of the insistent desire, on 
the part of the doubter, to solve such 
problems as *^What is thought?" 
^'What is existence?" 

If the windings of this intellectual 
labyrinth have not too far involved 
us, we have only to recognize the 
futility of such arguments, and exer- 
cise our will-power in the right direc- 

7 97 



WHY WORRY? 

tion. If we can bring ourselves to 
take the initiative, it is as easy to step 
out of the vicious circle, as for the 
squirrel to leave his wheel. But un- 
less we grasp the logic of the situa- 
tion, and take this initiative, no 
amount of abuse, persuasion, or ridi- 
cule will effect our freedom. 

A word may be in place regard- 
ing the anthropological status of 
the doubting folly and allied mental 
states. Men of genius have suffered 
from them all. A long list may 
be found in Lombroso's ^^Man of 
Genius." Under folie du doute we 
find, for example, Tolstoi, Manzoni, 
Flaubert and Amiel. 

Lombroso regards genius as degen- 
erative, and places among the signs of 
degeneration, deviations from the 
average normal, whether physical or 

98 



THE DOUBTING FOLLY 

mental. This plan has been quite 
generally followed. The nomencla- 
ture seems to me unfortunate and 
hardly justified by the facts. I can 
think of no more potent objection to 
such inclusive use of the term degen- 
erate, than the fact that Lombroso 
includes, under the signs of degenera- 
tion, the enormous development of 
the cerebral speech-area in the case of 
an accomplished orator. If such evo- 
lutional spurts are to be deemed de- 
generative, the fate of the four-leaved 
clover is sealed. 

The application of the term degen- 
eration may be, and should be, it 
seems to me, limited to the signs, 
whether physical or mental, which in- 
dicate an obviously downward ten- 
dency. I have elsewhere suggested, 
and the suggestion has already found 
some acceptance, that when the varia- 

99 



WHY WORRY? 

tion is not definitely downward, devi- 
ation and deviate be substituted for 
the unnecessarily opprobrious and 
often inappropriate terms, degener- 
ation and degenerate. 



100 



VII. 

HYPOCHONDRIA 

II marche, dort, mange et boit comme toua les 

autres; mais cela n'empeche pas qu'il soit fort 

malade. __ r ^r 7 ^ • • • 

MoLiERE: Le Malade imagxnaire. 

The victim of hypochondria may 
present the picture of health, or may 
have some real ill regarding which 
he is unduly anxious. His consulta- 
tion with a physician is likely to be 
preceded by letters explaining his 
exact condition, naming his various 
consultants and describing the vari- 
ous remedies he has taken. At the 
time of his visit notes are consulted, 
lest some detail be omitted. In his 
description anatomical terms abound ; 
thus, he has pain in his lungs, heart, 

or kidney, not in his chest or back. 
101 



WHY WORRY? , 

Demonstration by the physician of 
the soundness of these organs is met 
by argument, at which the hypochon- 
driac is generally adept. 

The suggestion that the hypochon- 
driac devotes undue attention to his 
own condition is met by him with 
indignant denial. Proposals that he 
should exercise, travel, engage in 
games, or otherwise occupy himself, 
fall on deaf ears, but he is always 
ready to try a new drug. If a medi- 
cine is found with whose ingredients 
the patient is not already familiar, its 
use is likely to produce a beneficial 
effect for a few days, after which the 
old complaint returns. 

The case has come to my attention 
of a young man who, for fear of tak- 
ing cold, remains in bed, with the 
windows of the room tightly closed 
and a fire constantly burning. He 

102 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

has allowed his hair to grow until it 
reaches his waist, he is covered with 
several blankets, wears Tindercloth- 
ing under his nightshirt, and refuses 
to extend his wrist from under the 
bed-clothes to have his pulse taken. 

Such faulty mental habits in minor 
degree are common. There are those 
who will not drink from a bottle with- 
out first inspecting its mouth for 
flakes of glass ; some will not smoke a 
cigar which has been touched hj an- 
other since leaving the factory ; some 
will not shake hands if it can possibly 
be avoided ; another pads his clothing 
lest he injure himself in falling. 
Many decline to share the occupations 
and pleasures of others through fear 
of possible wet feet, drafts of air, ex- 
haustion, or other calamity. Such 
tendencies, though falling short of 
hypochondria, pave the way for it, 

103 



WHY WORRY? 

and, in any event, gradually narrow 
the sphere of usefulness and pleasure. 

No part of the body is exempt from 
the fears of the hypochondriac, but he 
is prone to centre his attention upon 
the obscure and inaccessible organs. 
The anecdote is told of a physician 
who had a patient of this type — a 
robust woman who was never without 
a long list of ailments. The last time 
she sent for the doctor, he lost pa- 
tience with her. As she was telling 
him how she was suffering from 
rheumatism, sore throat, nervous in- 
digestion, heart-burn, pains in the 
back of the head, and what not, he in- 
terrupted her : 

'^Ah," he said in an admiring tone, 
''what splendid health you must have 
in order to be able to stand all these 
complaints!" 

104 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

THe phobias are so closely allied to 
hypochondria that it will not be out 
of place to discuss them here. A 
phobia is an insistent and engrossing 
fear, without adequate cause as 
judged by ordinary standards. Fa- 
miliar instances are fear of open 
places (agoraphobia), fear of closed 
places (claustrophobia), and fear of 
contamination (mysophobia). 

The sufferer from agoraphobia 
cannot bring himself to cross alone an 
open field or square. The sufferer 
from claustrophobia will invent any 
excuse to avoid an elevator or the 
theatre. When a certain lady was 
asked if she disliked to go to the 
theatre or church, she answered, ^'Not 
at all, but of course I like to have one 
foot in the aisle ; I suppose everyone 
does that." 

The victim of mysophobia will wash 

105 



WHY WORRY? 

llie Hands after touching any object, 
and will, so far as possible, avoid 
touching objects which he thinks may 
possibly convey infection. Some use 
tissue paper to turn the door-knob, 
some extract coins from the pocket- 
book with pincers. I have seen a lady 
in a public conveyance carefully open 
a piece of paper containing her fare, 
pour the money into the conductor's 
hand, carefully fold up the paper so 
that she should not touch the inside, 
and afterwards drop it from the tips 
of her fingers into a rubbish barrel. 
The case of a nurse who was dom- 
inated by fear of infection has come 
to my attention. If her handkerchief 
touched the table it was discarded. 
She became very adept at moving ob- 
jects about with her elbows, was 
finally reduced to helplessness and 
had to be cared for by others. 

106 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

Unreasoning fear of one or an- 
other mode of conveyance is not rare. 
It is said that Rossini found it im- 
possible to travel by rail, and that the 
attempt of a friend to accustom him 
to it resulted in an attack of f aintness 
(Lombroso). 

The sufferer himself realizes, in 
such cases, that there is no reason in 
his fear — he knows he can undergo 
greater dangers with equanimity. 
Even doubting folly finds no answer 
to the question why should this dan- 
ger be shunned and that accepted. 
The nearest approach to an answer 
is '*I can't," which really means '^I 
haven't." 

The origin of the phobia is not 
always clear, but given the necessary 
susceptibility, circumstances doubt- 
less dictate the direction the phobia 
shall take. A startling personal ex- 

107 



WHY WORRY? 



perience, or even reading or hearing 
of sucli an experience may start the 
fear which the insistent thought 
finally moulds into a fixed habit. 

To the hypochondriac who concen- 
trates his attention upon the digestive 
tract, this part of his body occupies 
the foreground of all his thoughts. 
He exaggerates its delicacy of struct- 
ure and the serious consequences of 
disturbing it even by an attack of 
indigestion. A patient to whom a 
certain fruit was suggested said he 
could not eat it. Asked what the ef- 
fect would be, he answered that he 
did not know, he had not eaten any 
for twenty years and dared not risk 
the experiment. 

Extreme antipathies to various 
foods are fostered among this class. 
A lady told me that she perfectly 
abominated cereals, that she could not 

108 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

stand vegetables, that she could not 
bear anything in the shape of an 
apple, that she could not abide 
spinach, and that baked beans made 
her sick at the stomach. 

The heart is perhaps the organ 
most often the object of solicitude on 
the part of the hypochondriac. When 
we realize that the pulse may vary in 
the healthy individual from 60 to over 
100, according to circmnstances, and 
that mere excitement may send it to 
the latter figure, we may appreciate 
the feelings of one who counts his 
pulse at frequent intervals and is 
alarmed if it varies from a given 
figure. 

Inspection of the tongue is a com- 
mon occupation of the hypochondriac, 
who is generally more familiar than 
his medical attendant with the anat- 
omy of this organ. 

109 



WHY WORRY? 

Insistent desire regarding the tem- 
perature is common not only among 
hypochondriacs, but among others. I 
do not allude to the internal tempera- 
ture (though I have been surprised to 
learn how many people carry a clini- 
cal thermometer and use it on them- 
selves from time to time) ; I refer to 
the temperature of the room or of the 
outside air. The wish to feel a certain 
degree of warmth is so overpowering 
in some cases that neither work nor 
play can be carried on unless the ther- 
mometer registers the desired figure. 
A person with this tendency does not 
venture to mail a letter without don- 
ning hat and overcoat; the mere 
thought of a cold bath causes him to 
shudder. 

Golf has cured many a victim of 
this obsession. It takes only a few 
games to teach the most delicately 

110 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

constructed that he can remain for 
hours in his shirt-sleeves on quite a 
cold day, and that the cold shower 
(preferably preceded by a warm 
one) invigorates instead of depresses 
him. Further experiment will con- 
vince him that he can wear thin 
underwear and low shoes all winter. 
Such experiences may encourage him 
to risk a cold plunge in the morning, 
followed by a brisk rub and a few 
simple exercises before dressing. 

Morbid fears in themselves produce 
physical manifestations which add to 
the discomfort and alarm of the hypo- 
chondriac. I allude to the rush of 
blood to the head, the chill, the mental 
confusion, and the palpitation. These 
symptoms are perfectly harmless, 
and denote only normal circulatory 
changes. It is true that one cannot at 

will materially alter his circulation, 
111 



WHY WORRY? 

but He can do so gradually by habit 
of thought. To convince ourselves of 
this fact, we need only remember to 
what a degree blushing becomes modi- 
fied by change of mental attitude. 
Similarly, the person who has prac- 
ticed mental and physical relaxation 
will find that the blood no longer 
rushes to his head upon hearing a 
criticism or remembering a possible 
source of worry. 

The automatic processes of the 
body are in general performed best 
when the attention is directed else- 
where. After ordinary care is taken, 
too minute attention to the digestive 
apparatus, for example, may retard 
rather than aid it. Watching the di- 
gestion too closely is like pulling up 
seeds to see if they are growing. 

The more attention is paid to the 
sensations, the more they demand. 

112 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

Nor can the degree of attention they 
deserve be measured by their own in- 
sistence. If one tries the experiment 
of thinking intently of the end of his 
thumb, and imagines it is going to 
sleep, the chances are ten to one that 
in five minutes it will have all the sen- 
sations of going to sleep. If this is 
true of the healthy-minded individ- 
ual, how much more must it be so in 
the person who allows his thoughts to 
dwell with anxious attention on such 
parts of his body as may be the imme- 
diate seat of his fears. The next step 
is for various sensations (boring, 
burning, prickling, stabbing, and the 
like) to appear spontaneously, and, if 
attention is paid to them, rapidly to 
increase in intensity. 

It is probable that the mere pres- 
sure of part upon part in the body, 
even the ordinary activity of its or- 

8 113 



WHY WORRY? 

gans, would give rise to sensations if 
we encouraged tliem. Given an 
anomalous sensation, or even a pain, 
for which the physician finds no 
physical basis, and which, after a 
term of years, has produced no 
further appreciable effect than to 
make one nervous, it is always in 
place to ask one's self whether the 
sensation or the pain may not be of 
this nature. 

Medical instructors are continually 
consulted by students who fear that 
they have the diseases they are study- 
ing. The knowledge that pneumonia 
produces pain in a certain spot leads 
to a concentration of attention upon 
that region which causes any sensa- 
tion there to give alarm. The mere 
knowledge of the location of the ap- 
pendix transforms the most harmless 
sensations in that region into symp- 

114 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

toms of serious menace. THe sensible 
student learns to quiet these fears, 
but the victim of ^^ hypos" returns 
again and again for examination, and 
perhaps finally reaches the point of 
imparting, instead of obtaining, 
information, like the patient in a 
recent anecdote from the Youth's 
Companion: 

It seems that a man who was con- 
stantly changing physicians at last 
called in a young doctor who was just 
beginning his practice. 

^*I lose my breath when I climb a 
hill or a steep flight of stairs," said 
the patient. ^^If I hurry, I often get 
a sharp pain in my side. Those are 
the symptoms of a serious heart 
trouble." 

**Not necessarily, sir," began the 

physician, but he was interrupted. 

"I beg your pardon!" said the pa- 
ns 



WHY WORRY? 

tient irritably. **It isn't for a young 
physician like you to disagree with an 
old and experienced invalid like me, 
sirl" 

There is no absolute standard for 
the proper degree of solicitude re- 
garding one's health, but if the hab- 
itual invalid possess a physique which 
would not preclude the average nor- 
mal individual from being out and 
about, even at the expense of a pain, a 
stomach ache, or a cold, there is prob- 
ably a hypochondriacal element in the 
case. It is a question of adjustment 
of effect to cause. 

The term ^^ imaginary" is too 
loosely applied to the sensations of 
the hypochondriac. This designation 
is unjustified, and only irritates the 
sufferer, rouses his antagonism, and 
undermines his confidence in the 

116 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

judgment of his adviser. He knows 
that the sensations are there. To call 
them imaginary is like telling one 
who inspects an insect through a 
microscope that the claws do not look 
enormous; they do look enormous — 
through the microscope — but this 
does not make them so. The wor- 
rier must learn to realize that he 
is looking at his sensations, as he 
does everything else, through a 
microscope. 

If a person living near a waterfall 
ignores the sound, he soon ceases to 
notice it, but if he listens for it, it in- 
creases, and becomes finally unbear- 
able. Common sense teaches him to 
concentrate his attention elsewhere; 
similarly, it demands that the victim 
of *^ hypos'' disregard his various sen- 
sations and devote his attention to 
outside affairs, unless the sensations 

117 



WHY WORRY? 

are accompanied by obvious physical 
signs. Instead of running to the 
doctor, let him do something — ride 
horseback, play golf, anything requir- 
ing exercise out of doors. Let him 
devote his entire energy to the exer- 
cise, and thus substitute the healthy 
sensations of fatigue and hunger for 
the exaggerated pains and the anoma- 
lous sensations which are fostered 
by self -study. Let him remember, 
moreover, that nature will stand an 
enormous amount of outside abuse, 
but resents being kept under close 
surveillance. 

In practicing the neglect of the sen- 
sations, one should not allow his mind 
to dwell on the possibility that he is 
overlooking something serious, but 
rather on the danger of his becoming 
*' hipped," a prey to his own doubts 
and fears, and unable to accomplish 

118 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

anything in life beyond catering to 
his own morbid fancies. 

Turning now to the bibliographic 
study of hypochondria, an interesting 
and characteristic contrast is offered 
between Pluxley, who called himself 
a hypochondriac, but apparently was 
not, and Carlyle, who resented the 
imputation, though it apparently had 
some justification in fact. 

With regard to Huxley, — the only 
basis for the diagnosis hypochondria 
in a given case, is undoubted evidence, 
by letter or conversation, that the 
question of health is given undue 
prominence. I have looked carefully 
through the volume of Huxley's let- 
ters (published by his son), without 
definitely establishing this diagnosis. 
The state of his health and the ques- 
tion of his personal comfort received 

119 



WHY WORRY? 

comparatively little attention. What- 
ever suffering Huxley endured lie 
seems to have accepted in a philosoph- 
ical and happy spirit, thus : 

^^ It is a bore to be converted into a 
troublesome invalid even for a few 
weeks, but I comfort myself with my 
usual reflection on the chances of life, 
* Lucky it is no worse.' Any impa- 
tience would have been checked by 
what I heard about . . . this morn- 
ing . . . that he has sunk into hope- 
less idiocy. A man in the prime of 
life!'' 

With regard to Carlyle, — it is true, 
as claimed by Gould {Biographic 
Clinics y 1903) that he showed every 
evidence of eyestrain with result- 
ing symptoms, particularly headache. 
This does not, however, preclude his 
having had hypochondria also, and in 
view of the violent and reiterated 

120 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

complaints running through his let- 
ters it seems quite credible that 
Froude's estimate of his condition 
was not far wrong. Surely, unless 
Carlyle was merely trying his pen 
without intending to be taken seri- 
ously, he devoted to the question of 
health a degree of attention which 
may be fairly adjudged undue. 

The first letter I quote (from 
those cited by Gould in fortifying his 
position) is of special interest as 
presenting in rather lurid terms 
Carlyle 's ideal of health. After read- 
ing this letter one cannot help 
suspecting that the discomforts so 
vividly described in his other letters 
were compared by him with this ideal 
rather than with those of the average 
individual. 

^*In the midst of your zeal and 
ardor, . . . remember the care of 

121 



WHY WORRY? 

health. ... It would have been a 
very great thing for me if I had been 
able to consider that health is a thing 
to be attended to continually, that 
you are to regard that as the very 
highest of all temporal things for you. 
There is no kind of achievement you 
could make in the world that is equal 
to perfect health. What to it are 
nuggets and millions? The French 
financier said 'Why is there no sleep 
to be sold ! ' Sleep was not in the mar- 
ket at any quotation. ... I find 
that you could not get any better 
definition of what 'holy' really is than 
'healthy.' Completely healthy; mens 
Sana in corpore sano, A man all lucid, 
and in equilibrium. His intellect a 
clear mirror geometrically plane, 
brilliantly sensitive to all objects and 
impressions made on it and imaging 
all things in their correct propor- 

122 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

tions; not twisted up into convex or 
concave, and distorting everything so 
that he cannot see the truth of the 
matter, without endless groping and 
manipulation: healthy, clear, and 
free and discerning truly all around 
him." 

The following extracts illustrate his 
attitude toward his physical short- 
comings, whatever they may have 
been. 

. . . ^*A prey to nameless struggles 
and miseries, which have yet a kind 
of horror in them to my thoughts, 
three weeks without any kind of sleep, 
from impossibility to be free from 
noise." 

^^I sleep irregularly here, and feel 
a little, very little, more than my usual 
share of torture every day. What the 
cause is would puzzle me to explain. 
I take exercise sufficient daily; I at- 

123 



WHY WORRY? 

tend witli rigorous minuteness to the 
quality of my food; I take all the 
precautions that I can, yet still the 
disease abates not." 

^'Ill-health, the most terrific of all 
miseries." 

*' Grown sicker and sicker. ... I 
want health, health, health ! On this 
subject I am becoming quite furious. 
... If I do not soon recover, I am 
miserable forever and ever. They 
talk of the benefit of health from a 
moral point of view. I declare sol- 
emnly, without exaggeration, that I 
impute nine-tenths of my present 
wretchedness, and rather more than 
nine-tenths of all my faults, to this 
infernal disorder in the stomach." 

'^ Bilious, too, in these smothering 
windless days." 

^* Broke down in the park; Uonnte 

124 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

nichts mehr, being sick and weak 
beyond measure." 

^'Many days of suffering, of dark- 
ness, of despondency. . . . lU-healtK 
has much to do with it." 

'^ Occasionally sharp pain (some- 
thing cutting hard, grasping me 
around the heart). . . . Something 
from time to time tying me tight as it 
were, all around the region of the 
heart, and strange dreams haunting 
me." 

^^ There is a shivering precipitancy 
in me, which makes emotion of any 
kind a thing to be shunned. It is 
my nerves, my nerves. . . . Such a 
nervous system as I have. . . . 
Thomas feeling in his breast for com- 
fort and finding bilious fever. . . . 
All palpitating, fluttered with sleep- 
lessness and drug-taking, etc. . . , 
Weary and worn with dull blockhead- 

125 



WHY WORRY? 

ism, chagrin (next to no sleep tlie 
night before)." 

^^A head full of air; you know that 
wretched physical feeling ; I had been 
concerned with drugs, had awak- 
ened at five, etc. It is absolute 
martyrdom. '^ 

*'A huge nightmare of indigestion, 
insomnia, and fits of black impatience 
with myself and others,— self chiefly. 
... I am heartily sick of my dyspep- 
tic bewilderment and imprisonment." 

''Alas ! Alas ! I ought to be wrap- 
ped in cotton wool, and laid in a 
locked drawer at present. I can 
stand nothing. I am really ashamed 
of the figure I cut." 

Froude's statements regarding 
Carlyle's condition are as follows: 

*'. . . The simple natural life, the 
wholesome air, the daily rides or 
drives, the poor food, . . . had re- 

126 



HYPOCHONDRIA 

stored completely the functions of a 
stomach never so far wrong as he had 
imagined. . . . Afterwards he was 
always impatient, moody, irritable, 
violent. These humours were in his 
nature, and he could no more be 
separated from them than his body 
could leap off its shadow. . . . He 
looked back to it as the happiest and 
wholesomest home that he had ever 
known. He could do fully twice as 
much work there, he said, as he could 
ever do afterwards in London." 

^^ . . If his liver occasionally 
troubled him, livers trouble most of 
us as we advance in life, and his 
actual constitution was a great deal 
stronger than that of ordinary men. 
. . . Why could not Carlyle, with 
fame and honor and troops of friends, 
and the gates of a great career flung 
open before him, and a great intellect 

127 



WHY WORRY? 

and a conscience untroubled by a 
single act which he need regret, bear 
and forget too? Whj indeed! The 
only answer is that Carlyle was 
Carlyle." 

These observations carry weight as 
representing the impartial and ju- 
dicial estimate of a careful observer 
desiring only accurately to picture 
Carlyle as he was. The only logical 
conclusion, it seems to me, was that 
Carlvle, in addition to ocular defect 
with its legitimate consequences, was 
weighed down by worry over the fail- 
ure to realize his own exaggerated 
ideal of health, that he devoted an 
undue degree of attention to this sub- 
ject and was unduly anxious about it 
— in other words, that he had decided 
hypochondriacal tendencies. 



128 



VIII. 



NEURASTHENIA 



It was a common saying of Myaon that men ought 
not to investigate things from words, but words 
from things; for that things are not made for the 
sake of words, but words for things. 

Diogenes Laertius, 

This term (properly, thougH not 
commonly, accented upon tlie penult) , 
was introduced by Beard to designate 
the large class of over-worked and 
worried who crowded his consulting 
room. The word is derived from the 
Greek neuron nerve, and astheneia 
weakness. 

Among the symptoms of this dis- 
order have been included disorders of 
digestion and circulation, muscular 
weakness, pains, flushes and chills, 
and anomalous sensations of every 
variety. It has been especially ap- 

9 129 



WHY WORRY? 

plied to cases showing sucli mental 
peculiarities as morbid self-study, 
fear of insanity and the various other 
phobias, scruples, and doubts with 
which we have become familiar. 

The ^^ American Disease" has been 
adopted abroad, and volumes have 
been devoted to it. Neurasthenia has 
been divided into cerebral, spinal, and 
otherwise, according as the fears and 
sensations of the patient are referred 
to one or another part of his body. 
"While the term neurasthenia is be- 
coming daily more familiar to the 
general public, it is being, on the 
w^hole, used, except as a convenient 
handle, rather less among neurolo- 
gists.* The question has arisen 
whether the symptoms of neuras- 



* In substantiation of this statement I need only 
cite the recent contribution of my friend, Dr. Dana, 
on the " Partial Passing of Neurasthenia." 

130 



NEURASTHENIA 

thenia are always due to simple ex- 
haustion. Advice regarding method, 
as well as amount, of work, is coming 
into vogue. Peterson, in a letter pub- 
lished in Collier's Weekly (Novem- 
ber 9, 1907) thus arraigns a patient 
who has told him he is a practical 
business man, and that his mind has 
been so occupied with serious matters 
that he has been unable to attend to 
his health. 

^'You, practical! you, a business 
man ! Why, you never had a serious 
thought in your life until now — at 
least not since you were a lad in the 
country. . . . Since boyhood you have 
never given a serious thought to 
health, home, wife, children, educa- 
tion, art, science, racial progress, or 
to the high destiny of man. You are 
simply a collector of money for its 
own sake, with no appreciation of 

131 



WHY WORRY? 

what it might represent if you were 
really serious and really a business 
man or man of affairs. There are 
many like you in our asylum wards, 
w^here they are known as chronic 
maniacs. Here is one who collects 
bits of glass, old corks, and pieces of 
string. There sits another with a lap 
full of pebbles, twigs and straws." 

Courtney (in Pyle's ^^ Personal 
Hygiene") says, ^^The brain is an 
organ which, under proper training, 
is capable of performing an immense 
amount of work, provided only that 
the work is of a varied character and 
does not produce a corresponding 
amount of mental disquietude. The 
importance of the emotions, especi- 
ally the depressing emotions such as 
grief, anxiety, and worry, as factors 
in the brain exhaustion, cannot easily 
be overestimated." 

132 



NEURASTHENIA 

The obvious corollary to this prop- 
osition is that the constitutional 
worrier is likely to break down under 
an amount of work which produces no 
such effect upon the average normal 
individual. 

The only quarrel I have with the 
name neurasthenia is that it diverts 
attention from the real condition 
oftenest to be treated, namely, the 
faulty mental tendency, and directs 
attention to an assumed debility 
which may or may not exist. Misdi- 
rected energy, rather than weakness, 
is the difficulty with one who is ready 
and anxious to walk miles to satisfy a 
doubt, or to avoid crossing an open 
square, and who will climb a dozen 
flights of stairs rather than be shut up 
in an elevator. Even the exhaustion 
that follows long attention to business 
is quite as often due to worry and 

133 



WHY WORRY? 

allied faulty mental habits as to the 
work itself. In most cases the 
phobias, the doubts, and the scruples, 
instead of being the result of break- 
down, must be counted among its 
principal causes. 

This is why simple rest and ab- 
stinence from work so often fail to 
accomplish the cure that should fol- 
low if the exhaustion were due simply 
to overwork. In the ^^neurasthenic'' 
rest from work only redoubles the 
worries, the doubts and the scruples, 
and the obsession to improve his time 
only adds to his nervous exhaustion. 
If a European trip is undertaken, the 
temperament responsible for the 
original breakdown causes him to 
rush from gallery to gallery, from 
cathedral to cathedral, so that no mo- 
ment may be lost. Not infrequently 

134 



NEURASTHENIA 

it so happens that the patient returns 
more jaded than ever. 

The neurasthenic is not infre- 
quently a confirmed obsessive, with 
all the faulty mental habits of this 
temperament. If he cannot make up 
his mind it is not because he is tired, 
but because this is his natural mental 
trend. If he drums, twitches, and 
walks the floor, these movements are 
not always due to exhaustion, but are 
habits peculiar to the temperament, 
habits well worth an effort to elimin- 
ate while in health, since they doubt- 
less, through precluding bodily re- 
pose, contribute their mite toward the 
very exhaustion of which they are 
supposed to be the result. If he can- 
not sleep it is not simply because he 
is tired, but because he is so consti- 
tuted that he cannot bring himself to 
let go his hold on consciousness until 

135 



WHY WORRY? 

he has straightened out his tangles. 
If, in addition, one has the hypochon- 
driacal tendency, he may worry him- 
self into complete wakefulness by the 
thought that he has already irrepara- 
bly injured himself by missing some- 
thing of the mystic number, eight or 
nine, or whatever he may deem the 
number of hours' sleep essential to 
health. 

It is important that the over- 
wrought business or professional man 
realize the importance of undertak- 
ing no more than he can accomplish 
without fret and worry; the impor- 
tance of taking proper vacations 
before he is tired out ; the importance 
of learning to divert his mind, while 
he can still do so, into channels other 
than those connected with his busi- 
ness; above all, the importance of 
cultivating the faculty of relaxing, 

136 



NEURASTHENIA 

and of dismissing doubts, indecisions 
and fears. He must cultivate what 
my colleague Dr. Paul succinctly 
terms ^'the art of living with yourself 
as you are.'' If he would ^^last out" 
he must learn to proceed with single 
mind upon whatever work he under- 
takes, and with equal singleness of 
mind apply himself, out of hours, to 
other occupation or diversion, pre- 
ferably in the open air. For the most 
effective work, as well as for peace of 
mind, it is essential that every 
thought of one's office be shut out by 
other interests when there is no actual 
business requiring attention. Mental 
relaxation is materially hampered by 
such persistent thoughts of one's 
place of business as those cited by 
Dr. Knapp : 

^^ A striking instance of the sort was 
related to me by a friend remarkably 

137 



WHY WORRY? 

free from any psychopathic taint. It 
often happens that he does scientific 
work in the evening at the Agassiz 
Museum. When he leaves for the 
night he puts out the gas and then 
stands and counts slowly up to a given 
number mitil his eyes are used to the 
darkness, in order that he may detect 
any spark of fire that may have 
started while he was at work. This 
is his invariable custom, but it some- 
times happens that when he goes back 
home so strong a feeling of doubt 
comes over him lest he may that once 
have omitted to do this, that he is un- 
comfortable until he returns to the 
museum to make sure." 

Among the predisposing causes for 
nervous breakdoA^m none is more 
potent than the inability of the obses- 
sive to adapt himself to change of 
plan, and to reconcile himself to 

138 



NEURASTHENIA 

criticism, opposition, and the vari- 
ous annoyances incident to his 
occupation. 

In dealing with others the follow- 
ing suggestion of Marcus Aurelius 
may come in play : 

^'When a man has done thee any 
wrong, immediately consider with 
what opinion about good or evil he 
has done wrong. For when thou hast 
seen this, thou wilt pity him, and 
neither wonder nor be angry." Again, 
in this connection the lines of Cowper 
are pertinent : 



( 



The modest, sensible and well-bred man 
Will not affront me, and no other can." 



Pope, also, who is said not always 
to have followed his own good coim- 
sel, contributes a verse which may 
serve a turn : 

" At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offense, 
That always shows great pride, or little sense." 

139 



WHY WORRY? 

The practice of such commonplace 
philosophy (which, to be effective, 
should be ready for immediate use, 
not stored away for later reflection), 
together with training against faulty 
mental states studied in these pages, 
will go far toward relieving the 
mental perturbation that vmfits for 
effective work, and contributes to 
*^ neurasthenia." 

During an hour's delay, caused by 
the failure of another to keep an 
appointment, I formulated the fol- 
lowing maxim : 

'^^ These are the annoyances inci- 
dent to my business; to fret when 
they occur means that I cannot man- 
age my business without friction." 

This may not appeal to the reader, 
but for me it has proved as good an 
hour's work as I ever did. Since that 
time, on the occurrence of similar 

140 



NEURASTHENIA 

sources of provocation, I have found! 
it necessary to go no farther than 
** These are the annoyances," to re- 
store the needful balance. When we 
allow our gorge to rise at ordinary 
sources of discomfort, it implies that 
we are prepared only for our affairs 
to run with perfect smoothness. This 
represents the insistent idea carried 
to an absurdity. 

At the risk of losing caste with the 
critical I cannot forbear sharing 
with the reader an inelegant maxim 
which has more than once prevented 
an access of rage upon the blunder of 
a subordinate : ^ ^ If he had our brains 
he'd have our job." 

Spinoza says: ^^The powerlessness 
of man to govern and restrain his 
emotions I call servitude. For a man 
who is controlled by his emotions is 
not his own master but is mastered 

141 



WHY WORRY? 

by fortune, under whose power he is 
often compelled, though he sees the 
better, to follow the worse." The 
same philosopher in counselling self- 
restraint adds : 

^^The mind's power over the emo- 
tions consists, first, in the actual 
laiowdedge of the emotions." Again: 
^^An emotion which is a passion 
ceases to be a passion as soon as we 
form a clear and distinct idea of it." 
The meaning of this dictum I first 
realized on experiencing the magical 
effect of the line of thought suggested 
by the delayed appointment. 

Communion with Nature has a pe- 
culiarly soothing effect on tired and 
jangled nerves. My friend. Dr. 
Harold Williams, tells me that among 
his main reliances for tired and over- 
wrought women are the reading of 

142 



NEURASTHENIA 

children's hoohs, and worldng in the 
garden, Peterson thus advises Ms 
busy patient : 

''^A small farm in a simple com- 
munity would be for you an asset of 
immeasurable value from the stand- 
point of health and spiritual rejuven- 
ation. But true simplicity should be 
the rigorous order of that country 
life. A chateau by the sea, with a 
corps of gardeners, a retinue of 
servants, and yachts and auto- 
mobiles, would prove a disastrous 
expedient. 

^^In that quiet retreat you should 
personally and tenderly learn to 
know each rosebud, shrub, vine, 
creeper, tree, rock, glade, dell, of your 
own estate. You should yourself de- 
sign the planting, paths, roads, the 
flower-garden, the water-garden, the 
wood-garden, the fernery, the lily- 

143 



WHY WORRY? 

pond, the wild - garden, and the 
kitchen garden." 

Not everyone is so happily situ- 
ated as to be able to follow this ad- 
vice in its entirety, but many can 
make a modest effort in this direc- 
tion : the kitchen-garden may appeal 
to some who have no appreciation for 
the wild flowers, and who scorn to 
cultivate such tastes. 

One warning is, however, here in 
order : The cultivation of the garden 
or the field for utilitarian purposes is 
inevitably associated with the maxim, 
'^Hoe out your row" — an excellent 
maxim for the idle and disorderly, 
but not to be taken too literally by 
the over-exacting and methodical 
business man who is trying to make 
the radical change in his view of life 
necessary to free his mind from the 
incubus of worry. Nor must the 

144 



NEURASTHENIA 

amateur husbandman scan with too 
anxious eye the weather map and the 
clouds. If he mind these warnings 
he may learn to say, — 

'* For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r. 
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flower, 
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew, 
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew." 

The over-conscientious individual 
may object that it is selfish to con- 
sider his own comfort when he has 
work to do for others. But expend- 
ing too freely of our nervous energies, 
even in a good cause, is like giving to 
charity so much of our substance that 
we in turn are obliged to lean on 
others for support. 

In properly conserving our own 
energy we may be lightening the ulti- 
mate burden of others. There is no 
place for selfislmess in HaeckePs 
philosophy regarding the proper bal- 

10 145 



WHY WORRY? 

ance between duty to one's self and 
duty to others. Nor w^as selfishness 
a failing of the Quaker poet who 
idealized 

" The flawless symmetry of man. 
The poise of heart and mind." 



146 



IX. 

SLEEPLESSNESS 

He shall enjoy the same tranquility in his sleep 
as when awake. 

Dighy's Epicurus, Maxim xl. 

Sleeplessness is due, in the ma- 
jority of cases, to a faulty habit of 
mind. The preparation for a sleep- 
less night begins with the waking 
hours, is continued through the day, 
and reaches its maximum when we 
cease from the occupations which 
have in some degree diverted our at- 
tention from harassing thoughts, and 
retire, to struggle, in darkness and 
solitude, with the worries, doubts, re- 
grets, and forebodings, which now 
assume gigantic and fantastic shapes. 

He who would sleep at night must 
regulate his day, first, by not under- 

147 



WHY WORRY? 

taking more than he can accomplish 
without undue stress, and, second, by 
carrying through what he does under- 
take, as far as he may, without the 
running accompaniment of undue 
solicitude, anxious doubts, and mor- 
bid fears discussed in the preceding 
sections. It is futile to expect that a 
fretful, impatient, and over-anxious 
frame of mind, continuing through 
the day and every day, will be sud- 
denly replaced at night by the placid 
and comfortable mental state which 
shall insure a restful sleep. 

Before proceeding, then, to the im- 
mediate measures for inducing sleep, 
let us consider the suitable prepara- 
tory measures. 

The nervous breakdown which pre- 
cludes sleep is oftener due to worry 
than to work. Nor should the suf- 
ferer jump too quickly to the conclu- 

148 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

sion that it is the loss of sleep rather 
than the worry that makes him 
wretched. It is astonishing how much 
sleep can be lost without harm, pro- 
vided its loss is forgotten, and how 
much work can be carried on without 
extreme fatigue, provided it be un- 
dertaken with confidence and pursued 
without impatience. It is, however, 
essential that the work be varied and, 
at due intervals, broken. Trainers 
for athletic contests know that in- 
creasing practice without diversion 
defeats its end, and particularly in- 
sist upon cessation of violent effort 
directly before the final test. "Why 
should we not treat our minds as weU 
as our bodies? 

The active and over-scrupulous 
business or professional man who al- 
lows no time for rest or recreation, 
who can confer no responsibility upon 

149 



WHY WORRY? 

his subordinates, who cultivates no 
fad, and is impatient of every mo- 
ment spent away from his occupation, 
is in danger of eventually ^^ going 
stale," and having to spend a longer 
and less profitable vacation in a 
sanitarium than would have sufficed 
to avert the disaster. Nor will he find 
it easy to change his sleep-habit with 
the change of residence. It behooves 
him to change that habit while still 
at work, as a step toward averting 
breakdown. 

It will harm few of us to take a 
bird's eye view of our affairs at stated 
intervals, and ask ourselves if the 
time has not arrived when it will be 
a saving of time and money as well as 
worry for us to delegate more of the 
details, and more even of the re- 
sponsibilities, to others, concentrating 
our own energies upon such tasks as 

150 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

we are now peculiarly qualified to 
undertake. To the man determined 
to accomplish a lifetime of work 
before he rests, there is food for 
thought in the following anecdote : 

When Pyrrhus was about to sail 
for Italy, Cineas, a wise and good 
man, asked him what were his inten- 
tions and expectations. 

^^To conquer Rome," said Pyrrhus. 

^'And what will you do next, my 

'^Next I will conquer Italy." 

^^And after that r' 

*^We will subdue Carthage, Mace- 
donia, all Africa, and all Greece." 

^'And when we have conquered all 
we can, what shall we do^" 

^ ^ Do ^ Why, then we will sit down 
and spend our time in peace and 
comfort." 

*'Ah, my lord," said the wise 

151 



WHY WORRY? 

Cineas, *^what prevents our being in 
peace and comfort now?'' 

The time to take a vacation is be- 
fore one is exhausted. If one is 
discontented during his vacation, he 
should take it, none the less, as a mat- 
ter of duty, not expecting to enjoy 
every moment of it, but contenting 
himself with the anticipation of 
greater pleasure in the resumption of 
his duties. He should cultivate an 
interest in out-door occupation or 
some study that carries him into the 
fields or woods. Aside from the time 
on shipboard, the worst possible vaca- 
tion for the overworked business or 
professional man is the trip to 
Europe, if spent in crowding into the 
shortest possible time the greatest 
possible amount of information on 
matters artistic, architectural, and 
historic. 

152 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

No one can acquire the habit of 
sleep who has not learned the habit 
of concentration, of devoting himself 
single-minded to the matter in hand. 
If we practice devoting our minds, 
as we do our bodies, to one object at 
a time, we shall not only accomplish 
more, but with less exhaustion. 
Training in this direction will help 
us, on retiring, to view sleep as our 
present duty, and a sufficient duty, 
without taking the opportunity at 
that time to adjust (or to try to 
adjust) all our tangles, to review our 
past sources of discomfort, and to 
speculate upon the ills of the future. 

A walk, a bath, a few gymnastic 
exercises, will often serve a useful 
purpose before retiring, but if they 
are undertaken in a fretful and im- 
patient spirit, and are accompanied 
by doubts of their effectiveness, and 

153 



WHY WORRY? 

the insistent thought that sleep will 
not follow these or any other proced- 
ure, they are likely to accomplish 
little. 

The best immediate preparation 
for sleep is the confidence that one 
will sleep, and indifference if one 
does not. It is an aid in the adoption 
of this frame of mind to learn that 
many have for years slept only a few 
hours per night, without noticeable 
impairment of their health or com- 
fort. Neither unbroken nor long- 
continued sleep, however desirable, is 
essential to longevity or efficiency. 
This is illustrated by the following 
examples : 

Joseph A. Willard, for nearly half 
a century Clerk of the Court in Suf- 
folk County, and a well-known figure 
on the streets of Boston, died in his 

154 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

eighty-eighth year. He was active 
and alert in the performance of his 
daily duties up to their discontinu- 
ance shortly before his death. He 
kept, meantime, records of the tem- 
perature, weather, and condition of 
the streets, at all hours of the night, 
and every night, for many years be- 
fore the establishment of the weather 
bureau. So reliable were these rec- 
ords regarded by the courts that they 
were often appealed to in the trial of 
cases, and their accuracy never ques- 
tioned by either party in the suit. I 
publish these facts by the permission 
of his son. 

George T. Angell, the well-known 
humanitarian, than whom few, if any, 
have led a more busy life, when in his 
sixty-ninth year wrote as follows : 

*'For the benefit of those who do 
not [take narcotics, opiates, anaes- 

155 



WHY WORRY? 

thetics] I will say that I suppose 
there are very few in this country 
who have slept less than I have ; but I 
have never taken anything to stupefy, 
while thousands of good sleepers I 
have IvQown have long since gone to 
the last sleep that knows no waking 
here. It 'was undoubtedly wise to 
change my professional life from 
court to office practice: but in other 
matters I was compelled to choose 
between living the life of a vegetable, 
or losing sleep; and I chose the 
latter." 

Mr. Angell is now eighty-four, still 
actively engaged in affairs, and al- 
lows me to add that during the past 
six years he has gone for a week at a 
time with no sleep ; for three months 
at a time he has not averaged more 
than two hours in twenty-four; he 
does not remember having ever had 

156 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

a good night's sleep. Mrs. Angell 
states that, with one exception, she 
has never known him to sleep through 
the night. 

It is worth while to remember these 
experiences before resorting to drugs 
for sleeplessness. 

I have somewhere seen it stated 
that a prominent divine attributed his 
happy and green old age to the fact 
that he slept a certain number of 
hours every night. Against this state- 
ment must be set the reflection that 
many another old gentleman can 
fairly attribute his comfort, in part 
at least, to an attitude of indifference 
toward the unessentials, among which 
I suspect must be included the ques- 
tion whether we average eight hours 
of sleep or materially less. 

Let us now consider some of the 
faulty mental habits directly affect- 

157 



WHY WORRY? 

ing sleep itself. First comes tlie com- 
pulsive thought that one must sleep 
now, and the impatient count of the 
wakeful hours supposed to be ir- 
recoverably lost from the coveted 
number. This insistence in itself 
precludes sleep. The thought, '^ISTo 
matter if I don't sleep to-night ; I will 
some other night," will work wonders 
in the direction of producing sleep 
to-night. 

The continuance of any given posi- 
tion, completely relaxed, in bed, even 
without unconsciousness, is more rest- 
ful than tossing about. The mere 
experiment of remaining immobile in 
a certain position as long as possible, 
and concentrating the mind on the 
thought, ^'I am getting sleepy, I am 
going to sleep," will oftener produce 
the desired result than watching the 
proverbial sheep follow one another 

158 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

over the wall. Training during tlie 
day in restraining nervous move- 
ments is an aid in acquiring the 
ability to do this. 

This is a field in which self-sugges- 
tion is of definite value. Everyone 
appreciates the effect on sleep of the 
** state of mind" when he has passed 
a succession of sleepless hours fol- 
lowed by a sudden tendency to som- 
nolence at the time for rising. The 
problem is to acquire the frame of 
mind without waiting for circum- 
stances. To demonstrate the effect of 
faulty suggestion combined with rest- 
lessness on awaking in the night, try 
the following: 

Experiment I. — ^Place yourself on 
the face and from this point turn 
rapidly in a complete circle back- 
wards from right to left until you are 
again on the face. Pause several 

159 



WHY WORRY? 

times and say to yourself rapidly **I 
cannot sleep in this position." The 
result of the experiment is practically 
uniform. The rapid movement and 
the suggestion prevent sleep. 

To demonstrate the effect of bodily 
relaxation combined with correct sug- 
gestion, in promoting sleep try — 

Experiment II. — Start in the same 
position as Experiment I. Traverse 
the same circle, prolonging each pause 
with body relaxed, and substituting 
at each pause the suggestion, ^^I can 
sleep in any position," repeated a 
number of times deliberately and as if 
you meant it. The restful pose and 
the suggestion generally induce sleep 
long before the circle is completed. 

Next comes the compulsive thought 
that we cannot sleep until everything 
is ** squared up" and all mental pic- 
tures completed. The story is told 

160 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

that a gentleman took a room in the 
hotel next another who was notori- 
ously fussy. He remembered this 
fact after dropping one boot care- 
lessly to the floor, and laid the other 
gently down. After a pause he heard 
a rap on the door and a querulous, 
*^For heaven's sake, drop the other 
boot, or I can't get to sleep." 

Many find themselves unable to 
sleep until the whole household is ac- 
counted for and the house locked up 
for the night, until certain news is 
received, and the like. The same ten- 
dency postpones sleep until all affairs 
are straightened out in the mind, as 
well as in reality. A little reflection 
shows how indefinite must be the 
postponement of sleep under such 
conditions. 

No training is more important for 
the victim of compulsive tendencies 

11 161 



WHY WORRY? 

than the practice of trusting some- 
thing to chance and the morrow, and 
reconciling himself to the fact that at 
no time, in this world, will all things 
be finally adjusted to his satisfaction. 

The habit of dismissing, at will, dis- 
agreeable thoughts is a difficult but 
not impossible acquisition. Arthur 
Benson in ''The Thread of Gold" 
relates the following anecdotes : 

''When Gladstone was asked, 'But 
don't you find you lie awake at night, 
thinking how you ought to act, and 
how you ought to have acted?' he an- 
swered, 'No, I don't; where would 
be the use of that?'" 

"Canon Beadon [who lived to be 
over one hundred] said to a friend 
that the secret of long life in his own 
case was that he had never thought 
of anything unpleasant after ten 
o'clock at night." 

162 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

The insistent desire to sleep in a 
certain bed, with a certain degree of 
light or darkness, heat or cold, air or 
absence of air, is detrimental. This 
is in line with the desire to eat certain 
foods only, at a certain table, and at a 
certain time. The man who loses his 
appetite if dinner is half an hour late 
is unable again to sleep if once waked 
up. This individual must say to him- 
self, ^^ Anyone can stand what he 
likes ; it takes a philosopher to stand 
what he does not like," and try at 
being a philosopher instead of a 
sensitive plant. 

Inability to sleep while certain 
noises are continued must be simi- 
larly combated. If one goes from 
place to place in search of the quiet 
spot for sleep, he may finally find 
quiet itself oppressive, or worse yet, 
may be kept awake by hearing his 

163 



WHY WORRY? 



own circulation, from which escape is 
out of the question. He who finds 
himself persistently out of joint with 
his surroundings will do w^ell to pon- 
der the language of the Chinese 
philosopher : 

^^The legs of the stork are long, the 
legs of the duck are short: you can- 
not make the legs of the stork short, 
neither can you make the legs of the 
duck long. "Why worry ? ' ' 

With regard to the character of 
sleep itself, the attitude of our mind 
in sleep is dominated, to a degree, at 
least, by its attitude in the waking 
hours. It is probable that during 
profound sleep the mind is inactive, 
and that dreams occur only during 
the transition-state from profound 
sleep to wakefulness. It is conceiv- 
able that in the ideal sleep there is 
only one such period, but ordinarily 



164 



SLEEPLESSNESS 

there occur many such periods during 
the night ; for the uneasy sleeper the 
night may furnish a succession of 
such periods, with comparatively lit- 
tle undisturbed rest, hence his dreams 
seem to him continuous. The char- 
acter of the pictures and suggestions 
of dreams, though in new combina- 
tions, are largely dependent on our 
daily experiences. Is it not, then, 
worth while to encourage, during our 
waking hours, as far as is consistent 
with our duties, such thoughts as 
are restful and useful, rather than 
those which serve no purpose but 
annoyance. 

If we will, we can select our 
thoughts as we do our companions. 



165 



X. 

OCCUPATION NEUROSIS 

Be not ashamed to be helped; for it is thy busi- 
ness to do thy duty like a soldier in the assault on 
a town. How, then, if being lame thou canst not 
mount up on the battlement alone, but with the 
help of another it is possible? 

Marcus Aurelius. 

The insistent and over-consci- 
entious habit of mind plays so large 
a part in the so-called occupation 
neuroses that a brief discussion of 
their nature may here be in place. 

"The best-known form of this dis- 
tressing malady is ^'writer's cramp." 
Upon this subject the proverbially 
dangerous little knowledge has been 
already acquired ; a fuller knowledge 
may give comfort rather than alarm, 
and may even lead to the avoidance 
of this and allied nervous disorders. 

166 



OCCUPATION NEUROSIS 

The term *^ writer's cramp" has un- 
duly emphasized a feature, namely, 
the cramp, which is neither the most 
common nor the most troublesome 
among the symptoms resulting from 
over-use of a part. In occupation 
neuroses, other than those produced 
by the use of the pen, pain, weakness, 
and numbness are at least equally 
prominent, and even in writer's 
cramp the ^^ neuralgic" form is 
common. 

The fact is generally realized that 
this type of disorder is particularly 
frequent among persons of nervous 
temperament. The reason is two- 
fold, first, the resistance of such indi- 
viduals is less than the average, sec- 
ond, the insistent habit of mind leads 
them to overdo. It is against the lat- 
ter factor that our efforts may to 
advantage be directed. 

167 



WHY WORRY? 

I have in mind the ease of a lady 
who complained of severe pain in the 
right arm with no apparent physical 
cause. The pain, at first appearing 
only when the arm was placed in a 
certain position, finally became almost 
constant. She denied excessive nse 
of the arm, but her husband stated 
that she plied the needle to such an 
extent that it caused the family dis- 
tress. This she indignantly denied, 
and fortified her position by the state- 
ment that she only took short stitches ! 
Further inquiry elicited the acknowl- 
edgment that she did so because she 
could no longer take long ones. This 
is a fair example of an occupation 
neurosis. 

Some time ago, after long con- 
tinued and over-conscientious effort 
to satisfy the requirements of an 
athletic instructor, I acquired what is 

168 



OCCUPATION NEUROSIS 

known as a ^^golf arm." Efforts at 
its relief were unavailing. A vigor- 
ous course of massage only increased 
the pain. I finally asked a friend 
what they did in England when a golf 
player suffered this annoyance. He 
replied that no golf player ever did 
so ; when it occurred among others the 
arm was placed in wool for three 
months, at the end of which time a 
single movement of swinging the club 
was made; if this movement caused 
pain the treatment was renewed for 
another three months. I did not sup- 
pose he intended the advice to be 
taken literally, but followed it, except 
as regarded the wool, and I verily 
believe that I should otherwise have 
been experimenting with the treat- 
ment of golf arm to-day. 

My friend's advice indicates the 
general experience with occupation 

169 



WHY WORRY? 

neuroses including writer's cramp, 
for whicli every imaginable measure 
has been tried, only to be replaced by 
protracted abstinence from the use of 
the pen. The attempt to use the left 
hand proves, as a rule, only tempor- 
arily efficacious. The speedy appear- 
ance of symptoms in the left hand 
emphasizes the fact that it is tired 
brain, as well as the tired muscle, that 
rebels. 

The ranks of every profession, and 
of every trade, are daily depleted of 
the most promising among their mem- 
bers, whose zeal has outrun their dis- 
cretion ; their overworked brains and 
hands have succumbed under the in- 
cessant strain of tasks, often self- 
imposed. 

It is hard, but essential, for the 
sufferer from an occupation neurosis 
to abandon frantic efforts at combin- 

170 



OCCUPATION NEUROSIS 

ing treatment with continuance of 
labor. He must bring all his philoso- 
phy to bear on the temporary, but 
complete, abandonment of his chosen 
occupation, at whatever loss to him- 
self or others. 

To avoid this contingency the over- 
conscientious worker will do well to 
modify his ambition, and lower his 
pride if needful, consoling himself 
with the reflection that an occasional 
interruption of his labor, even at ma- 
terial loss, may be replaced by years 
of future usefulness. Cowper says: 

" 'Tis thus the understanding takes repose 
In indolent vacuity of thought. 
And rests, and is refreshed." 



171 



ii 



XL 

THE WORRIER AT HOME 

Small habits, well pursued betimes, 
May reach the dignity of crimes. 

Hannah More. 

More than one *^ sunbeam" and 
life of the party" in society is the 
cross patch" and **fuss budget" of 
the home. His gracious smiles and 
quips abroad are matched at home by 
darkened brows and moody silence, 
only broken by conversation of the 
italicized variety: ^^Will it ever stop 
raining?" '^ Can't you see that I am 
busy?" ^^What are you doing?" and 
the \\kQ. Whatever banner is ex- 
hibited to the outside world, the motto 
at home seems to be ^^ Whatever is, is 
wrong." Defects in the menage, care- 
fully overlooked when dining out, are 

172 



THE WORRIER AT HOME 

called with peculiar unction to tlie 
attention of the housekeeper of the 
home, whose worry to please is only 
matched by the *^ sunbeam's" fear 
that she shall think him satisfied 
with what is placed before him. 

" There's something kind of pitiful about a man that 
growls 
Because the sun beats down too hot, because the 
wild wind howls, 
Who never eats a meal but that the cream ain't 
thick enough, 
The coffee ain't been settled right, or else the 
meat's too tough — 

Poor chap! He's just the victim of Fate's oldest, 
meanest trick, 
You'll see by watching mules and men, they 
don't need brains to kick." 

Chicago Interocean. 

Add to the *' kicking habit" the 
insistence that each member of the 
family must be reminded at frequent 
intervals of his peculiar weaknesses, 
and that the discussion of uncom- 
fortable topics, long since worn 

173 



WHY WORRY? 

threadbare, must be reopened at every 
available opportunity, and the adage 
is justified, ^^be it ever so humble, 
there's no place like home." 

Try the following suggestion on 
approaching the house after a hard 
day's work. Say to yourself, **Why 
tired and cross ? Why not tired and 
good-natured"?" The result may 
startle the family and cause inquiries 
for your health, but ^^ Don't Worry," 
if it does; console yourself with the 
thought they will like you none the 
less for giving them a glimpse of that 
sunny nature of which they have 
often heard. 

As a further preparation for the 
evening meal, and the evening, by 
way of alleviating the mental and 
physical discomfort following a try- 
ing day, one is surprised by the ef- 
fectiveness of taking a bath and 

174 



THE WORRIER AT HOME 

changing all the clothing. This treat- 
ment, in fact, almost offers a sure 
cure, but the person who would be 
most benefited thereby, is the person 
so obsessed to pursue the miserable 
tenor of his way that he scouts the 
suggestion that he thus bestir himself, 
instead of sinking into the easy chair. 
He may, however, accept the sugges- 
tion that simply changing the shoes 
and stockings is extremely restful, 
when reminded that if he had worn 
kid gloves all day he would be relieved 
to free his hands from the incubus, 
and, if gloves must still be worn, to 
put on a cool pair. 

It is a further aid to physical, and 
indirectly to mental, comfort, if one 
can learn to wear low shoes and the 
thinnest of underwear the year 
round; the former offer a panacea 
for fidgets; the latter lessens the 

175 



WHY WORRY? 

perspiration, wMch increases the sus- 
ceptibility to drafts, and to even 
moderate lowering of temperature. 
The prevailing belief that this pro- 
cedure is dangerous is disproved by 
the experience of the many who have 
given it a thorough trial. The insis- 
tent belief of the neurotic that he 
cannot acquire this habit is touched 
upon in the chapter on Worry and 
Obsession. If he thinks he is ^ ^ taking 
cold," let him throw back his shoul- 
ders and take a few deep breaths, or 
if convenient, a few exercises, instead 
of doubling the weight of his under- 
wear, and in the long run he will find 
that he has not only increased his 
comfort, but has lessened, rather than 
increased, the number of his colds. 

Much of the worry of the home is 
retrospective. *^If I had only made 
Mary wear her rubbers," — ^*If we 

176 



THE WORRIER AT HOME 

had only invested in Calumet & Hecla 
at 25," — '*If we had only sent John 
to college," represent a fruitful 
source of family discomfort. The 
morbid rhyme is familiar to all : 

" Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
The saddest these, * It might have been.' " 

I should be glad to learn of any 
advantage accruing from the indul- 
gence of this attitude toward the 
bygone. A happier and more sensible 
habit of mind may be attained by 
equal familiarity with the following : 

"Add this suggestion to the verse, 
* It might have been a great deal worse/ " 

A fruitful source of discomfort for 
the worrier at home is the absence of 
occupation. He looks forward to 
mental rest after using his brain all 
day, but there is no rest for him 
unless in sleep. The most valuable 

12 177 



WHY WORRY? 

rest he could give his mind would be 
to occupy it with something worth 
while, yet not so strenuous as to cause 
solicitude. As Saleeby points out, the 
mock worry of a game is a good anti- 
dote for the real worry of life, and a 
game is far better than nothing, 
unless the player make, in turn, a 
work of his play, in which case worry 
continues. 

The hardest task for the worrier at 
home is to get away from home. With 
advancing years the temptation grows 
upon us to spend our evenings by the 
fireside, to make no new friends and 
seek no new enjoyments. But this 
unbroken habit is neither the best 
preparation for a happy old age, nor 
the best method of counteracting 
present worry. Nor should one stop 
to decide whether the special enter- 
tainment in question will be worth 

178 



THE WORRIER AT HOME 

while — he must depend rather on the 
realization that if he accepts most 
opportunities he will be, on the whole, 
the gainer. 

The man whose occupation keeps 
him in-doors all day should make 
special effort to pass some time in 
the open air, if possible walking or 
driving to and from his place of busi- 
ness, and taking at least a stroll in 
the evening. 

As more than one writer has sug- 
gested, the best resource is the fad. 
The fad will prove an inestimable 
boon after withdrawing from active 
work, but it should be commenced 
long before one discontinues business, 
else the chances are that he will never 
take it up, but will fret away his time 
like the average man who retires from 
an occupation which has engrossed 
his attention. 

179 



WHY WORRY? 

The fad should not be pursued too 
strenuously, or its charm is lost. A 
lady once told me that she had given 
up studying flowers because she 
found she could not master botany in 
the time at her disposal. Another sees 
no use in taking up history unless he 
can become an authority on some 
epoch. Another declines to study 
because he can never overtake the 
college graduate. But one of the best 
informed men of my acquaintance 
had no college education. One of his 
fads was history, with which he was 
far more familiar than any but the 
exceptional college man, outside the 
teachers of that branch of learning. 

The usefulness of the fad does not 
depend upon the perfection attained 
in its pursuit, but upon the pleasure 
in its pursuit, and upon the diversion 
of the mind from its accustomed 

180 



THE WORRIER AT HOME 

channels. The more completely one 
learns to concentrate his thoughts on 
an avocation, the more enthusiasm 
and effectiveness he can bring to bear 
on his vocation in its turn. A fad 
that occupies the hands, such as car- 
pentering, turning, or photography, 
is peculiarly useful if one's taste runs 
in that direction. 

One handicap in cultivating the fad 
is the lack of interest on the part of 
our associates, but if we become genu- 
inely interested in any fad that is at 
all worth while, we shall inevitably 
add new acquaintances likely to prove 
at least as interesting as those of our 
present friends, who have no thoughts 
outside their daily round of toil. The 
more fads one cultivates, so long as he 
avoids the obsession to obtrude them 
at all times and places, the more in- 

181 



WHY WORRY? 

teresting he will, in his turn, become 
to others. 

The over-solicitude that defeats its 
own end, in the case of a parent, has 
been admirably portrayed by Arthur 
Benson in ^'Beside Still Waters," — 
^Hhere was nothing in the world 
that he more desired than the com- 
pany and the sympathy of his chil- 
dren; but he had, beside this, an 
intense and tremulous sense of his 
responsibility toward them. He at- 
tached an undue importance to small 
indications of character, and thus the 
children were seldom at ease with 
their father, because he rebuked them 
constantly, and found frequent fault, 
doing almost violence to his tender- 
ness, not from any pleasure in 
censoriousness, but from a terror, 
that was almost morbid, of the conse- 

182 



THE WORRIER AT HOME 

quences of the unchecked develop- 
ment of minute tendencies." 

Something must be left to natural 
growth, and to fortune, even in such 
important matters as the rearing of 
children. 



183 



11 



XII. 

THE WORRIER ON HIS TRAVELS 

After all, is it not a part of the fine art of living 
to take the enjoyment of the moment as it come3 
without lamenting that it is not something else? 
Lilian Whiting: Land of Enchantment. 

In no phase of life is the worrying 
and the ^^fussy" habit more notice- 
able than in travel. This is, perhaps, 
partly because the lack of self-confi- 
dence, which so often unsettles the 
worrier, is peculiarly effective when 
he has relinquished the security of his 
accustomed anchorage. This applies 
surely to the over-solicitous attention 
paid by the traveler to the possible 
dangers of rail and sea. Here is a 
verse from Wallace Irwin : 

" ' Suppose that this here vessel/ says the skipper 
with a groan, 
* Should lose 'er bearin's, run away and bump upon 
a stone; 

184 



THE WORRIER ON HIS TRAVELS 

Suppose she'd shiver and go down when save our- 
selves wo could'nt.' 

The mate replies, 
' Oh, blow me eyes ! 
Suppose agin she shouldn't ? ' " 

A common direction taken by the 
worrying habit, in the traveler, is 
that of taking in advance each step of 
the journey, preparing for every 
contingency, and suffering before- 
hand every imaginable hardship and 
inconvenience. I do not vouch for 
the story (though I can match it with- 
out going far afield) of the gentleman 
who abandoned his trip from Paris 
to Budapesth because he found he 
would be delayed in Vienna six hours, 
^^too long time to wait in the station, 
and not long enough to go to the 
hotel." It is the imperative duty of 
every traveler to discover interests 
w^hich shall tide him over a few hours' 
delay wherever it may occur. 

It is by no means a waste of time 

185 



WHY WORRY? 

to familiarize ourselves with the 
geography at least of our own coun- 
try; to know the situation and ap- 
pearance of every city of importance, 
and to know something about the dif- 
ferent railroads besides their initials, 
and their rating in the stock market. 
Again, if we take up the study of the 
trees, flow^ers and birds, with the aid 
of the admirable popular works now 
available, we shall not only view the 
scenery with new eyes, but shall wel- 
come, rather than be driven to de- 
spair, by a breakdown in the woods. 
It is a mistake to shun our fellow- 
travelers, from whom we should 
rather try to learn something. This 
is a solace in traveling alone, for the 
boon companion may handicap us in 
cultivating new acquaintances and 
gaining new impressions. Though 
the main object of recreation is diver- 

186 



THE WORRIER ON HIS TRAVELS 

sion from the daily round of thought, 
the fact need not be lost sight of that 
the busy man will find his practical 
interests furthered, rather than hin- 
dered, by a little widening of the 
horizon. Nor should he forget, mean- 
time, the admonition of Seneca that 
if he would wish his travels delightful 
he must first make himself delightful. 
It is inevitable that uncomfortable, 
as well as agreeable, experiences oc- 
cur in travel. But the man who 
spends his time and thought in avoid- 
ing the one and seeking the other is 
steadily forging chains whose gall 
shall one day surpass the discomforts 
of a journey around the world. 
Arthur Benson in ^^ Beside Still 
"Waters" says that Hugh learned 
one thing at school, namely, that the 
disagreeable was not necessarily the 
intolerable. Some of us would do 

187 



WHY WORRY? 

well to go back to school and learn 
this over again. I know of only two 
ways by which the discomforts of 
travel can be avoided. One is to 
ignore them, the other to stay at home. 

A fellow traveler told me that on 
one occasion, in the presence of a 
beautiful bit of mountain scenery, he 
overheard two ladies in anxious 
consultation comparing, article by 
article, the corresponding menus of 
two rival hotels. The fact that three 
varieties of fish were offered at one, 
while only two were offered at the 
other, opened so animated a discus- 
sion of quantity as opposed to prob- 
able quality that the listener dis- 
cretely withdrew. 

A lady on the Florida express, after 
reading a novel all day with an occa- 
sional interim, during which she 
gazed through her lorgnette with 

188 



THE WORRIER ON HIS TRAVELS 

bored and anxious air, finally said to 
her companion, ^^I have not seen a 
single estate which compares to those 
in Brookline." 

Among the varieties of needless 
worry imposed upon the traveler by 
the insistent habit, none is more com- 
mon, or more easily overcome, than 
the refusal to sleep unless noise and 
light are quite shut out. If the suf- 
ferer make of his insistent habit a 
servant, rather than a master, and 
instead of reiterating ^^I must have 
quiet and darkness," will confidently 
assert, ^^I must get over this non- 
sense," he will speedily learn that 
freedom from resentment, and a good 
circulation of air, are more conducive 
to sleep than either darkness or 
silence. 

The best drug for the sleepless 
traveler is the cequo animo of Cicero. 

189 



XIII. 

THE WORRIER AT THE TABLE 

These little things are great to little man. 

Goldsmith: The Traveller. 

The insistent habit of mind is 
nowhere more noticeable than in con- 
nection with the food. I have seen a 
hotel habitue, apparently sane, who 
invariably cut, or broke, his bread 
into minute particles, and minutely 
inspected each before placing it in his 
mouth. If this were a book of con- 
fessions, I should have myself to 
plead guilty, among worse things, to 
having avoided mince pie for weeks 
after encountering among other in- 
gredients of this delicacy, a piece of 
broken glass. 

Not infrequently the obsessive 
diner so long hesitates before giving 

190 



THE WORRIER AT THE TABLE 

his final order that the waiter brings 
the wrong dish. The insistent thought 
now replaces the doubting folly, and 
the diner would as soon think of eat- 
ing grass as the article offered. I 
have known him impatiently to leave 
the table under these circumstances, 
and to play the ostentatious martyr, 
rather than partake of the food he 
had at the outset given weighty con- 
sideration. I have seen another omit 
his lunch because water had been 
spilled upon the cloth, and still 
another leave the dining-car, with the 
announcement that he would forego 
his meal because informed by the con- 
ductor that men's shirt waists with- 
out coats were taboo. 

The obsessive of this type may by 
training even reach the point of 
seeing the amusing instead of the 
pathetic side of the picture when, in 

191 



WHY WORRY? 

the course of Ms travels, his request 
for '^a nice bit of chicken, cut thin," 
is transmitted to the kitchen as — 
^^One chick.'' 

One day, with pride, I called the 
attention of my easy-going friend to 
the fact that I was eating a dish I 
had not ordered. He quietly re- 
marked that the next step was to eat 
it and say nothing! Another friend 
has this motto in his dining-room: 
^^Bat what is set before you and be 
thankful." His children will open 
their eyes when they find others, less 
reasonably reared, demanding that 
the potatoes be changed because they 
are sprinkled with parsley, that a 
plate be replaced because it has had a 
piece of cheese upon it, or that the 
salad of lettuce and tomato be re- 
moved in favor of one with tomato 
alone. 

192 



THE WORRIER AT THE TABLE 

A lady recently told me of break- 
fasting with a foreign sojourner in 
America, who upon being offered the 
contents of an egg broken into a glass, 
was not satisfied with declining it, but 
felt impelled also to express his 
extreme disgust at this method of 
serving it, fortunately to the amuse- 
ment, rather than to the annoyance of 
his hostess. 

^^ After this, know likewise,'' says 
Epictetus, ^Hhat you are a brother 
too; and that to this character it 
belongs to make concessions, to be 
easily persuaded, to use gentle lan- 
guage, never to claim for yourself any 
non-essential thing, but cheerfully to 
give up these to be repaid by a larger 
share of things essential. For con- 
sider what it is, instead of a lettuce, 
for instance, or a chair, to procure for 
yourself a good temper. How great 
an advantage gained!" 

13 193 



WHY WORRY? 

The insistent desire to have a cer- 
tain degree and character of appetite 
not infrequently leads to consulting 
the physician. Still more common is 
the obsession that the appetite must 
be gratified, the supposition being 
that the desire for food is, in the 
growing child or in the adult, an in- 
fallible guide to the amount needed, 
though it is a matter of common 
knowledge that this is not true of 
infants or of domestic animals. If 
one leaves the table himgry he soon 
forgets it unless inordinately self- 
centered, and he has no more desire to 
return than to go back to bed and 
finish the nap so reluctantly discon- 
tinued in the morning. 

I have heard the theory advanced 
by an anxious forecaster of future 
ills, that all unnecessary food, if 
packed away as adipoise tissue, serves 

194 



THE WORRIER AT THE TABLE 

to nourish the body in periods of 
starvation. Assuming that the aver- 
age individual need consider this 
stress of circumstance, I am strongly 
of the impression that the best prepa- 
ration for enforced abstinence will 
prove, not a layer of fat, but the habit 
of abstinence. The nursery poet 
says: 

"The worry cow would have lived till now 
If she'd only saved her breath. 
She feared the hay wouldn't last all day 
So choked herself to death." 

The quantity of food proved by 
experiment to suffice for the best 
work, physical or mental, is surpris- 
ingly small. A feeling of emptiness, 
even, is better preparation for active 
exercise than one of satiety. 

It is a national obsession with us 
that no meal is complete without 
meat. Order fruit, a cereal, rolls and 
coffee, at the hotel some morning, and 

195 



WHY WORRY? 

tHe chances are ten to one that the 
waiter will ask what you are going to 
have for hredkfast, though you have 
already ordered more than is abso- 
lutely necessary for that meal, as 
demonstrated by the custom upon the 
Continent, where the sense of fitness 
is as much violated by the consump- 
tion of an enormous breakfast as it is 
with us by the omission of a single 
detail. 

It may be asked if it is not sub- 
versive of discipline for the hotel 
habitue to become too easy-going. 
There is doubtless a limit to the virtue 
of allowing ourselves to be imposed 
upon, but there is little fear that the 
individual who opens the question 
will err in this direction. It behooves 
him rather to consider the danger of 
his occupying the unenviable position 
of the "fuss-budget." 

196 



XIV. 

THE FEAR OF BECOMING INSANE 

We must be steadfast, Julian! JSatan. is very 
busy in all of us. 

Ibsen : Emperor and Oalilean. 

FeW;, perhaps, among the high- 
strung and delicately organized can 
truly say that this fear has never 
occurred to them. It affects even 
children, at an age when their minds 
are supposed to be taken up with the 
pleasures and pursuits appropriate to 
their years. This fear is generally 
dispelled by the serious occupations 
of life, but in certain cases it per- 
sists as an insistent and compelling 
thought. 

It may afford consolation to know 
that insanity results, in the majority 
of cases, from physical disease of 

197 



WHY WORRY? 

the brain, and that it is ordinarily 
unanticipated, unsuspected and un- 
credited by the patient. There is no 
more danger of insanity attacking the 
worrier and the delicate than the 
robust and the indifferent. In fact, 
the temperament which produces the 
faulty habits we are considering 
rarely culminates in insanity. It 
seems worth while, however, to re- 
place the vague fear of insanity by 
a knowledge of the variety of mental 
unbalance remotely threatening the 
person who lacks the desire or the 
will, to place a check upon these 
faulty habits of mind. We may thus, 
in the worrier whose fears have taken 
this direction, substitute effort for 
foreboding. 

It is our conduct rather than our 
thoughts that determines the question 
of insanity. The most practical defini- 

198 



THE FEAR OF BECOMING INSANE 

tion of insanity I know is that of 
Spitzka, the gist of which is that a 
person is insane who can no longer 
correctly register impressions from 
the outside world, or can no longer 
act upon those impressions so as to 
formulate and carry out a line of 
conduct consistent with his age, edu- 
cation and station. 

The banker may repeat the process 
of locking and unlocking, even to the 
point of doubting his own sensations, 
but he may still be able to formulate, 
and carry out, a line of conduct 
consistent with his position, though 
at the expense of intense mental 
suffering. 

In the reahn of morbid fears, the 
person obsessed by fear of contamina- 
tion shows no sign of insanity in 
using tissue paper to turn the door- 
knob, or in avoiding objects that have 

199 



WHY WORRY? 

been touched by others. Up to this 
point his phobia has led merely to 
eccentricity, but suppose his fear so 
far dominates him that he can no 
longer pursue his occupation for fear 
of handling tools or pen, and that he 
persistently refuses to eat through 
fear of poison, he has then reached 
the point where he can no longer 
formulate lines of conduct, and he is 
insane. 

It is, then, important to foresee the 
tendency of phobias, and to accustom 
one's self to the point of view that the 
worst possible harm, for example 
from contamination by ordinary ob- 
jects, is no worse than mental unbal- 
ance, and that the probable conse- 
quences thereof (nil) are infinitely 
preferable. 

Even with regard to more tangible 
fears, as of elevators, fires, tunnels, 

200 



THE FEAR OF BECOMING INSANE 

thunder-storms, and the like, a cer- 
tain tranquility may be gradually 
attained by a similar philosophy. 
Suppose instead of dwelling on the 
possibility of frightful disaster the 
sufferer practices saying: '^The 
worst that can happen to me is no 
worse than for me to let these fears 
gradually lessen my sphere of opera- 
tions till I finally shut myself up in 
my chamber and become a confirmed 
hypochondriac." One should also 
remember that many another shares 
his fears, but shows no sign because 
he keeps a '^ stiff upper lip," an ex- 
ample he will do well to follow, not 
only for his own eventual comfort, 
but for the sake of his influence on 
others, particularly on those younger 
than himself. The pursuance of this 
line of thought may result in the 
former coward seeking instead of 

201 



WHY WORRY? 

avoiding, opportunities to ride in 
elevators and tunnels, and even to 
occupy an inside seat at the theatre, 
just to try his new-found power, and 
to rejoice in doing as others do 
instead of being set apart as a hope- 
less crank. 

These fears bear directly on the 
question of hypochondria. We have 
already seen how the sphere of the 
hypochondriac is narrowed. His 
work and his play are alike impeded 
by his fear of drafts, of wet feet, of 
loud noises, of palpitation, of exhaus- 
tion, of pain, and eventually of 
serious disease. Is he insane? Kot 
so long as he can carry out a line of 
conduct consistent with his station 
and surroundings. 

It is remarkable how many obses- 
sions we may harbor without causing 
us to swerve from our accustomed 

202 



THE FEAR OF BECOMING INSANE 

line of conduct. Whatever our 
thoughts, our conduct may be such 
that we attract little attention beyond 
the passing observation that we are a 
little odd. We may break down, it is 
true, under the double load we carry, 
but we are in little danger of insanity. 
Those established in the conviction 
that they cannot stand noises or other 
sources of discomfort, rarely reach 
the point of a certain poor old lady 
who used to wander from clinic to 
clinic, able to think of nothing else, 
and to talk of nothing else, than the 
ringing in her ears, and to attend to 
no other business than efforts for its 
relief. She was counselled again and 
again that since nothing was to be 
found in the ears she should endeavor 
to reconcile herself to the inevitable, 
and turn her thoughts in other direc- 
tions. Unfortunately, she had become 

203 



WHY WORRY? 

peculiarly adept in the detection of 
disagreeable sights, sounds, and other 
sources of irritation, and had for a 
long term of years practiced quite 
the opposite of control. She had 
hitherto either insisted on discontinu- 
ance of all sources of irritation, fled 
their neighborhood, or put on blue 
glasses and stopped her ears with 
cotton. When, finally, her sharpened 
sense caught the sound of her own 
circulation, she could think of noth- 
ing but this unavoidable source of 
discomfort, which was prepared to 
follow her to the uttermost parts of 
the earth. 

A w^ell-known author has said that 
the difference between sanity and 
insanity depends only on the power to 
conceal the emotions. While this 
definition will hardly pass in law or 
medicine, it surely offers food for 

204 



THE FEAR OF BECX)MING INSANE 

thought. Suppose for a moment that 
we were dominated by the impulse to 
externalize all our thoughts and all 
our emotions, there would be some 
basis for the common, but inaccurate, 
saying that everyone is insane. 

This brings us to a form of insanity 
which the obsessive may well bear in 
mind, namely, that known as manic- 
depressive. This disorder, in its 
typical form, is shown by recurring 
outbursts of uncontrollable mental 
and physical activity (mania), alter- 
nating with attacks of profound de- 
pression (melancholia). This form 
of insanity represents the inability to 
control an extreme degree of the 
varied moods to which we all are 
subject. Long before the modern 
classification of mental disorders, 
Burton, in his introduction to the 
^^ Anatomy of Melancholy," expressed 
this alternation of moods thus : 

205 



WHY WORRY? 

" When I go musing all alone, 
Thinking of divers things foreknown. 
When I build castles in the ayr, 
Void of sorrow and void of feare. 
Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet. 
Me thinks the time runs very fleet. 
All my joyes to this are folly. 
Naught so sweet as melancholy. 

" When I lie waking all alone. 
Recounting what I have ill done. 
My thoughts on me they tyrannize, 
Feare and sorrow me surprise, 
Whether I tarry still or go. 
Me thinks the time moves very slow. 
All my griefs to this are jolly, 
Naught so sad as melancholy." 
***** 

" I '11 not change my life with any King, 
I ravisht am: can the world bring 
More joy, than still to laugh and smile, 
In pleasant toyes time to beguile? 
Do not, do not trouble me. 
So sweet content I feel and see. 
All my joyes to this are folly, 
None so divine as melancholy. 

" I'll change my state with any wretch 
Thou canst from goale or dunghill fetch: 
My pain's past cure, another hell, 
I may not in this torment dwell. 
Now desperate I hate my life, 
Lend me a halter or a knife; 
All my griefs to this are jolly. 
None so damn'd as melancholy." 

206 



THE FEAR OF BECOMING INSANE 

The depressed stage of this dis- 
order is commonly shown by retarda- 
tion of thought and motion, the 
excited stage by pressure of activity 
and acceleration of thought. In the 
so-called ^^ flight of ideas" words suc- 
ceed each other with incredible 
rapidity, without goal idea, but each 
word suggesting the next by sound or 
other association, thus : 

'^Are you blue'?" 

^^Blue, true blue, red white and 
blue, one flag and one nation, one 
kingdom, one king, no not one king, 
one president, we are going to have a 
president first, cursed, the worst." 

Who does not recognize the modest 
prototype of this elaborate rigmarole 
chasing itself through his mind as he 
walks the street in jaunty mood, and 
who of us would not surprise and 
alarm his friends if he should sud- 

207 



WHY WORRY? 

denly let go his habitual control, 
express his every thought and ma- 
terialize his every passing impulse to 
action? Who can doubt that the per- 
son who has trained himself for years 
to repress his obsessions is less likely 
to give way to this form of insanity 
than one who has never practiced 
such training ? Let us then endeavor 
to pursue '^the even tenor of our 
way" without giving way to the obses- 
sion that we must inflict our feelings 
upon our associates. We may in this 
way maintain a mental balance that 
shall stand us in good stead in time of 
stress. 

The autumnal tendency to melan- 
choly is recognized by Thoreau. The 
characteristic suggestion of this nat- 
ure-lover is that the melancholic go 
to the woods and study the symplo- 
carpus foe^tidus (skunk cabbage), 

208 



THE FEAR OF BECOMING INSANE 

whose English name savors of con- 
tempt, but whose courage is such that 
it is already in the autumn jauntily 
thrusting forth its buds for the com- 
ing year. 

An admirable reflection for the vic- 
tim of moods, as for many another, is 
the old saying in which Abraham 
Lincoln is said to have taken peculiar 
comfort, namely, ^^This also will 
pass.'' 



14 209 



XV. 

RECAPITULATORY 

And found no end in wandering mazes lost. 

Paradise Lost. 

We have reviewed the various 
phases of worry and the elements out 
of which worry is assembled. It has 
been seen that exaggerated self -con- 
sciousness blocks effort through fear 
of criticism, ridicule or comment. 
The insistent habit of mind in the 
worrier has been found to permeate 
the content of thought, and unfavor- 
ably to influence action. The fact has 
been pointed out that the obsession to 
do the right thing may be carried so 
far as to produce querulous doubt and 
chronic indecision — hence worry. 

It has been pointed out that over- 
anxiety on the score of health (hypo- 

210 



RECAPITULATORY 

cHondria) aggravates existing symp- 
toms, and itself develops symptoms; 
that these symptoms in turn increase 
the solicitude which gave them birth. 
Attention has been called to the influ- 
ence of over-anxious and fretful days 
in precluding the restful state of 
mind that favors sleep, and to the 
influence of the loss of sleep upon the 
anxieties of the following day; in 
other words, worry prevents sleep, 
and inability to sleep adds to worry. 

We have seen that doubts of fitness 
lead to unfitness, and that the worry 
of such doubts, combined with futile 
regrets for the past and forebodings 
for the future, hamper the mind 
which should be cleared for present 
action. 

The injurious effect upon the nerv- 
ous system of these faulty mental 
states has been emphasized, together 

211 



WHY WORRY? 

with their influence as potent under- 
lying causes of so-called nervous pros- 
tration, preparing the worrier for 
breakdown from an amount of work 
which, if undertaken with tranquil 
mind, could have been accomplished 
with comparative ease. 

The question is, will the possessor 
of these faulty mental tendencies 
grasp the importance of giving 
thought to the training that shall free 
him from the incubus ? He certainly 
has the intelligence, for it is among 
the intelligent that these states are 
mostly found; he certainly has the 
will-power, for lack of will-power is 
not a failing of the obsessed. The 
question is, can he bring himself to 
make, at the suggestion of another, a 
fundamental change of attitude, and 
will he take these suggestions on 
faith, though many seem trivial, 

212 



RECAPITULATORY 

others, perhaps, unreasonable, and 
will he at least give them a trial ? I 
hope so. 

In the next sections will be summed 
up such commonplace and simple 
suggestions as may aid emergence 
from the maze of worry. Many of 
the suggestions have been scattered 
through preceding sections. The 
worrier and folly-doubter is more 
likely to be benefited by trying them 
than by arguing about them, and it is 
within the realms of possibility that 
some may come to realize the truth of 
the paradox that he who loses himself 
shall find himself. 



213 



XVI. 

MAXIMS MISAPPLIED 

" Beware ! yet once again beware ! 

Ere round tliy inexperienced mind, 
With voice and semblance falsely fair, 

A chain Thessalian magic bind, " 

Thomas Love Peacock. 

A FKIEND of mine has a high- 
bred Boston terrier named ^^ Betty.'' 
Betty is a bundle of nerves, has a 
well-developed ^^New-England Con- 
science/' and among other deviative 
(not degenerative) signs is possessed 
of an insatiate desire to climb trees. 
More than once I have watched her 
frantic efforts to achieve this end, and 
she really almost succeeds — at least 
she can reach a higher point on the 
trunk of a tree than any other dog of 
her size I know — say six feet ; if the 
bark is rough, perhaps seven feet 

214 



MAXIMS MISAPPLIED 

would not be an overestimate. Her 
attempts are unremitting — once the 
frenzy is on it is with the greatest 
difficulty that she can be separated, 
panting and exliausted, from her task. 
Betty's case furnishes an illustra- 
tion of an inborn tendency, fostered 
neither by precept nor example, per- 
sistently to attempt the impossible, 
and to fret and fume when forced to 
discontinue. Some children are by 
inheritance similarly endowed. Im- 
agine Betty a child. It is safe to 
assume that the mental trait which 
prompts this expenditure of tireless 
and misdirected energy has sifted 
down through her ancestry; the 
chances are, of course, against its hav- 
ing skipped the generation inmiedi- 
ately preceding; in other words, one 
or both her parents are probably 
obsessive. It follows almost as a 

215 



WHY WORRY? 

matter of course that the ^^indomit- 
able wiir' of the child is viewed with 
pride by the parent. Instead of being 
kept within reasonable bounds, and 
directed into proper channels, it is 
encouraged in every direction, and 
fostered by every available means. 
Prominent among the incentives to 
renewed activity furnished by the 
solicitous parent, possibly by the un- 
discriminating teacher, will be found 
such precepts as: ^^In the bright 
lexicon of youth there's no such word 
as fail," ^^ Never give up the ship," 
^^ Never say die," ^^ There's always 
room at the top." 

Excellent maxims these, for the 
average child, particularly for the 
child w^ho is under average as regards 
ambition to excel. But what of their 
effect upon the already over-con- 
scientious and self -exacting child? 

216 



MAXIMS MISAPPLIED 

Simply to tighten fetters whicli 
should rather be relaxed. 

Life becomes a serious problem to 
a child of this kind at a much earlier 
age than is generally realized. I have 
been surprised to learn at what tender 
years such children have been borne 
down by a weight of self-imposed 
responsibility quite as heavy as can 
burden an adult, without the power of 
the adult to carry it. SucH, for ex- 
ample, are anxieties regarding the 
health or the financial status of the 
parents, matters freely discussed 
without a thought that the child will 
make these cares his own. 

I realize that this line of thought 
mil seem to some revolutionary. A! 
friend to whom I submitted the 
proposition that it did harm rather 
than good to encourage a child of this 
kind to attempt the impossible an- 

217 



WHY WORRY? 

swered, '^Nothing is impossible," and 
lie said it as if he more than half 
believed it. Here we have the am- 
bitions maxim challenging trnth it- 
self. It is certainly not impossible 
that Mozart wrote a difficult concerto 
at the age of five ; nor is it impossible 
that, in precocious children of a dif- 
ferent type, worry from failure to 
accomplish the desired may cause 
profound despair productive of dis- 
astrous results. 

ISTor are such children either 
geniuses or freaks — they are merely 
inheritors of the ^^New England 
Conscience,'' so named, I suppose, 
because the trait has multiplied in 
this section more rapidly even than 
the furniture and fittings of the May- 
flower. Without underrating the 
sterling qualities of the devoted band 
who founded this community it may 

218 



MAXIMS MISAPPLIED 

safely be suggested that neither the 
effectiveness nor the staying qualities 
of their descendants will be lessened 
by a certain modification of the quer- 
ulous insistence which dominates the 
overtrained adult in the rearing of 
the nervously precocious child. 

The maxim ^^What is worth doing 
at all is worth doing well/' if carried 
to its ultimate conclusion by the over- 
careful, would justify the expendi- 
ture of a quarter of an hour in sharp- 
ening a lead-pencil. This maxim, 
while losing in sententiousness would 
gain in reason if it ran thus : ^^ What 
is worth doing at all is worth doing 
as well as the situation demands." 
^* Never put off till to-morrow what 
you can do to-day," an excellent 
maxim for the shiftless, must not be 
taken too literally by the individual 
already obsessed to do to-day twice 

219 



WHY WORRY? 

what lie can and quadruple what he 
ought. 

Neither the chronic doubter nor the 
prematurely thoughtful need be ad- 
monished, *^Look before you leap," 
or **Be sure you're right, then go 
ahead." Such guides to conduct, 
however effective in the case of three 
individuals, in the fourth hinder ac- 
complishment by encouraging quer- 
ulous doubt; — it is for the benefit 
of the fourth that these pages are 
written. A revolutionary effort must 
be made before the worrier and 
the folly-doubter can throw off his 
shackles. 

It may be questioned whether this 
sort of philosophy does not savor of 
laissez-faire, and tend to produce in- 
difference; but the worry against 
which these efforts are directed is a 
state of undue solicitude, — due solici- 

220 



MAXIMS MISAPPLIED 

tude is not discouraged. Fortunately, 
as partial offset to the many maxims 
stirring to increased activity, there 
exist certain maxims of less stren- 
uous, but not unreasonable, trend, 
thus : — ^^ What can't be cured must be 
endured," '* Patient waiters are no 
losers." Such maxims are quite as 
worthy of consideration by the obses- 
sive as any of those previously cited. 
While they modify overzeal, they de- 
tract in no way from effective, even 
strenuous, endeavor. 



221 



XVIL 

THE FAD 

" Fads may be said to constitute a perfect mental 
antitoxin for the poison generated by cerebral 

^c^ivi^y" Courtney. 

Theee is nothing occult in the sug- 
gestion that the worrier cultivate a 
fad. Its object is to interest him 
in something outside of himself and 
of the monotony of his accustomed 
round. If it seems to him too much 
trouble to enter upon the details of 
the fad there is all the more reason 
for freeing himself from such mental 
inertia. 

How shall we set to work to acquire 
a fad, without special opportunity or 
education, and with but little time at 
our disposal? Suppose we take the 
study of botany as an illustration, not 

222 



THE FAD 

necessitating class instruction. This 
useful study may be made also a 
charming fad, and one not beneath 
the notice of so learned and busy a 
man as Sir Francis Bacon, who found 
time and inclination to write an essay 
^'Of Gardens," in which he mentions 
by name and shows intimate acquaint- 
ance with, over one hundred distinct 
varieties of plant life. 

Sir John Lubbock (the Right Hon- 
ourable Lord Avebury) in **The 
Pleasures of Life," says: 

*^The botanist, on the contrary — 
nay, I will not say the botanist, but 
one with even a slight knowledge of 
that delightful science — when he goes 
out into the woods, or out into one of 
those fairy forests which we call 
fields, finds himself welcomed by a 
glad company of friends, every one 
with something interesting to tell." 

223 



WHY WORRY? 

There are two ways of cultivating 
botanical as well as other knowledge ; 
namely, the passive and the active. 
The passive method is to let someone 
inform us; the active is to find out 
something for ourselves. The latter 
is the only effective method. Suppose 
we start with the wild flowers : 

The first step is to purchase a 
popular illustrated book on this sub- 
ject, preferably one in which the 
flowers are arranged according to 
color. iWe first learn, in the intro- 
duction, the principal parts of the 
flower, as the calyx, the corolla, the 
stamen and the pistil. We find that 
the arrangements of leaves and 
flowers are quite constant, that the 
leaves of some plants are opposite, 
of others alternate; of still others 
from the root only, that flowers are 

224 



THE FAD 

solitary, in raceme, head, spike or 
otherwise clustered. 

It now behooves us to take a walk 
upon a country road with our eyes 
open and our book under our arm. 
Along the roadsides passing vehicles 
have scattered the seeds of many 
flowering plants. We decide to pick 
and learn the first white blossom we 
see. This blossom appears, we will 
say, upon a plant about a foot high. 
We notice that its leaves are opposite, 
that its corolla has five petals and 
that its calyx is infiated. We now 
look through the section on white 
flowers. The first plant described has 
leaves from the root only ; the second 
is a tall shrub, these we pass, there- 
fore, and continue until we find one 
answering the description, leaves op- 
posite, calyx inflated, corolla of five 
petals. When we reach it we have 

15 225 



WHY WORRY? 

identified the plant; we now feel a 
sense of ownership in the Bladder 
Campion, and are quite shocked when 
onr friend calls it only ^^a weed." 
Meantime we have noted many fa- 
miliar names and some familiar illus- 
trations which we must identify on 
our next ramble. 

On consulting our timepiece we 
find that we have absolutely spent a 
couple of hours in complete forget- 
fuhiess of the daily grind, to say 
nothing of having filled our lungs 
with comparatively fresh air, and 
having taken a little exercise. Best 
of all, w^e have started a new set of 
associations ; we have paved the way 
for new acquaintances, Linnaeus, 
Gray, Dioscorides and Theophrastus, 
to say nothing of our friend so-and-so 
whom we always thought rather tire- 
some but with whom we now have 

226 



THE FAD 



something in common. We shall take 
up our daily grind to-morrow with 
a new zest for having forgotten it for 
a few hours, and find it less of a grind 
than usual; moreover, we now have 
an object to encourage another stroll 
in the country. 

If we continue as we have begun 
we shall soon find ourselves prying 
into the more scientific works on 
botany, and perhaps eventually ex- 
tending our interest to the birds, the 
beasts and the boulders. One of these 
days we may become quite proficient 
amateur naturalists, but this is only 
by the way; the real advantage to 
us has been the externalizing of our 
interests. 

This is the most desultory way pos- 
sible of cultivating the fad. One may 
go a step further and transplant the 
wild flowers and the weeds. A busy 



227 



WHY WORRY? 



and successful professional friend of 
mine, besides having a cabinet shop 
in his stable, finds (or makes) time 
to go to the woods with his trowel. 
He has quite a wild-flower bank in 
Ms garden. I cannot give definite 
directions as to their setting out — 
I think he just throws them down 
anywhere — a fair percentage seem to 
thrive, — I can remember the larger 
bur-marigold, the red and white bane- 
berry, rattlesnake-weed, rattlesnake- 
plantain, blood root, live-for-ever, 
wood betony, pale corydalis, and 
fern-leaved foxglove, and there are 
many more. 

Mushrooms and ferns offer fertile 
fields for special study. If the wor- 
rier has an altruistic turn he will find 
satisfaction in bestowing duplicates 
upon his friends, thus still further 
externalizing his interests. He will 



228 



THE FAD 

be surprised to find how many things 
there are in the world that he never 
noticed. 

Whether our tastes lead us in the 
direction of photography, pottery, 
mechanics, collecting china, books and 
old furniture, of philosophy or a 
foreign language, we need not aim to 
pursue these avocations too pro- 
foundly. We must not compare our 
acquisitions with those of the savant 
or the skilled laborer, but must con- 
sole ourselves with the reflection that 
we at least know more, or can do 
more, than yesterday. If our fads, 
now and then, make us do something 
that gives us a little trouble, so much 
the better, if it is only to go to the 
library for a book, — the worrier 
whose idea of rest and recuperation is 
to remain forever glued to an easy- 
chair is indeed to be pitied. 

229 



WHY WORRY? 

Collecting old prints, stamps, and 
coins, is by no means a waste of time. 
Fads of this nature offer the addi- 
tional inducement of an asset which 
may serve, in a material way, to 
banish worry in time of stress. To 
reap the full advantage of the collec- 
tion fads one should take pains to 
acquire a knowledge of the geography 
and history with which they are asso- 
ciated. Few are so unfortunately 
placed that they have no access to 
information on these subjects. The 
encyclopaedia, at least, is within 
general reach, though rarely con- 
sulted by those who most need its aid. 

Suppose one takes up history for 
an indoor fad. How shall he start 
in? Since he pursues this study only 
as a fad, he can commence almost 
anywhere. Let him decide to become 
familiar with the fifteenth century. 

230 



THE FAD 



The first step is to familiarize himself 
with the principal rulers and the 
principal battles of that time. Sup- 
pose he spends half an hour every 
evening upon the life of one or 
another ruler, as given in the en- 
cyclopaedia or elsewhere. If he is 
sufficiently inventive to construct a 
pictorial or other plan in which to 
give each his place, so much the 
better. Having thus constructed a 
frame-work he can begin to fill in the 
details, and now the study begins to 
interest him. At any public library 
he can find a catalogue of historical 
fiction arranged according to cen- 
turies. Under the fifteenth century 
he will find Quentin Durward, The 
Broad Arrow, Anne of Geierstein, 
The Cloister and the Hearth, Every 
Inch a King, Marietta, The Dove in 
the Eagle's Nest, and other standard 

231 



WHY WORRY? 

works, all of which he may have read 
before, but every page of which will 
have for him a new interest since he 
can now place the characters, appreci- 
ate the customs, and form a consis- 
tent picture of what was doing in 
different coimtries at this time. 

The next step is to acquire, in the 
same way, equal familiarity with the 
preceding and succeeding centuries, 
particularly with the inter-relations 
of the different countries, old and 
new. 

The reader who has followed to 
this point will need no further hint. 
If he continues as he has begun, he 
will be surprised to find how soon he 
will be able to instruct, on one subject 
at least, the college graduate, unless 
that graduate has happily continued 
as a fad what he once perfunctorily 
acquired. 

232 



THE FAD 

Another way of commencing this 
study, and the one, I confess, which 
appeals more to me, is first to estab- 
lish a framework which shall cover 
a long period of time, then study spe- 
cial epochs. An interesting way to 
start this method is to purchase 
Creasy 's '* Decisive Battles of the 
World," and familiarize one's self 
with its contents. This will furnish 
pegs on which to hang further items 
of information, and will impart a 
running familiarity with different 
nations involved in war from the time 
of the supremacy of Greece, down to 
the battle of Manila, in the recent 
edition, — in earlier editions to the 
time of Napoleon. 

The only absolutely essential refer- 
ence book for this study is Ploetz's 
*' Epitome of Universal History." 

To make this fad interesting, the 

233 



WHY WORRY? 

mere commitment to memory of facts 
and dates will not suffice. Items of 
history tlius acquired will inevitably 
fade. The conscientious but ill- 
advised student who attempts to com- 
mit the ^^ Epitome" to memory will 
fall by the way-side. Time is not 
wasted in dwelling sufficiently long 
on one subject to feel a sense of 
ownership in it, and there is oppor- 
tunity for the exercise of individual 
ingenuity in devising means to ac- 
complish this end. If one has the 
knack, for example, of writing non- 
sense verse (and this is a talent all too 
easy of cultivation) it will aid him in 
fixing by rhyme names and dates 
otherwise difficult to master, thus : 

*'Ten sixty-six is a date you must 
fix ; " or ^ ^ Drake was not late in fifteen 
eighty-eight." 

The study of music, history, trees, 

234 



THE FAD 

flowers, or birds doubtless seems of 
trivial interest to one who occupies 
his leisure hours with such weighty 
problems as figuring out how rich he 
would have been to-day if he had 
bought Bell Telephone at 15, but such 
study is far more restful, and in the 
long run quite as useful for the over- 
busy man. 

It is not necessary to devote an 
enormous amount of time to such 
pursuits. One has only to purchase 
Miss Huntington's ^^ Studies of Trees 
in Winter" and learn the trees in his 
own doorway, or upon his street, to 
awaken an interest that will serve 
him in good stead upon a railroad 
journey, or during an otherwise 
monotonous sojourn in the country. 
A walk around the block before 
dinner with such an object in view is 
more restful than pondering in one's 

235 



WHY WORRY? 

easy-chair over the fluctuations of the 
stock market, and the man who is 
^'too busy" for such mental relaxa- 
tion is paving the way for ultimate, 
perhaps early, breakdown. 

Once started on the trees, the man 
who did not even know that their 
buds were visible in the winter, after 
absorbing the contents of the popular 
tree-books may find himself looking 
for something more elaborate. He 
may even look forward to his next 
western trip with pleasure instead of 
disgust, now that he anticipates see- 
ing at close hand the eucalyptus, the 
Monterey cypress, and the pinus 
ponderosa, 

Courtney says ^Ho all this will 
undoubtedly be objected the plea of 
lack of time. The answer to argu- 
ments formed on such flimsy basis is 
that all the time which is spent in 

236 



THE FAD 

preparing one's self as a candidate 
for a sanitarium is like the proverbial 
edged tool in the hands of children 
and fools." 

A little time spent in such simple 
pursuits as I have indicated, and a 
few weeks' vacation before exhaus- 
tion appears^ may prevent a year's 
enforced abstinence from work on 
account of nervous invalidism. I am 
tempted here to say '^ A stitch in time 
saves nine," but adages are some- 
times dangerous. Thus the adage, 
^^If you want a thing well done you 
must do it yourself," has caused 
many a business and professional 
man to burden himself with details 
which in the long run he might better 
have intrusted to subordinates, even 
at the risk of an occasional blunder. 

It is not wise to specialize too much 
in the pursuit of the fad. Suppose 

237 



WHY WORRY? 

the busy man, having conceded the 
value of some out-of-door study, de- 
cides that he will learn the lumber 
industry, but take no interest in the 
shade trees. He will not materially 
broaden his interests in this way. He 
will rather add to his burdens another 
business. If he applies to this new 
business the same conscientious meth- 
ods which are wearing him out in 
his present one, the value of the fad 
is gone, the new study has done him 
more harm than good, and when on 
his vacation, unless there is a sawmill 
in the neighborhood, he finds himself 
stranded with only worry for com- 
pany. Similarly, if the study of his- 
tory is taken up in the way a fad 
should be taken up, anything in the 
way of a book will now interest the 
worrier, for hardly a book worth 
reading fails to contain either a bit 

238 



THE FAD 

of travel, geography, biography, 
law, or something on manners and 
customs. 

Permanent freedom from worry 
involves a change in one's whole view 
of life and method of thought. But 
the means by which introspection 
may be temporarily alleviated are 
by no means to be despised. Among 
these comes the pursuit of the golf- 
ball. Many a business and profes- 
sional man who thinks he has no time 
for golf can easily escape for an 
hour's play at the end of the day, 
twice a week, and in the long run it 
will prove to be time well expended. 
In point of fact, most are hindered 
rather by the notion that it is not 
worth while to visit the links unless 
one can play eighteen holes, or that 
it is not worth while to take up the 

239 



WHY WORRY? 

game at all unless one can excel. 
But the exercise is the same, and 
the air equally bracing whether we 
win or lose; the shower-bath will 
refresh us just the same whether we 
have played nine holes or twenty- 
seven. 

The automobile ride, the drive, and, 
best of all, the ride on horseback, will 
often serve to banish the vapors. 
Many neglect these methods, not from 
lack of time or money, but from in- 
disposition. 

A busy professional man recently 
assured me that he had renewed his 
youth by going three times a week to 
the gymnasium and joining the ^^old 
man 's class. ' ' Here is an opportunity 
open to practically everyone; it is a 
desirable practice if continued. The 
drawback is the lack of incentive 
when the novelty has passed. Such 

240 



THE FAD 



incentive is furnished by the fad, in 
the satisfaction of gaining new 
knowledge and broadening the 
thought-associations. 



16 241 



XVIII. 

HOME TREATMENT 

Submit to what is unavoidable, banish the im- 
possible from the mind, and look around for some 

new object of interest in life. 

Goethe. 

In tlie treatment of faulty mental 
habits the chief reliance is the train- 
ing of the mind; physical measures 
are merely supplementary. This fact 
has always been recognized in a gen- 
eral way. The need of such training 
was emphasized by Epictetus thus : 

^^Not to be disappointed of our 
desire, nor incur our aversion. To 
this ought our training be directed. 
For without vigorous and steady 
training, it is not possible to preserve 
our desire undisappointed and our 
aversion unincurred." 

But there has always been an un- 

242 



HOME TREATMENT 

dercurrent of dissatisfaction with 
purely mental treatment, and a desire 
for the drug, which has more than 
once, doubtless, been prescribed for 
the purpose of ^^ suggestion" only. 

The movement for psychic treat- 
ment on scientific principles, of 
faulty mental disorders, not of or- 
ganic nature, is well imder way. 
That the American profession takes 
an active interest in this movement 
is shown by the exhaustive paper on 
psycho-therapy by Dr. E. W. Taylor, 
recently read at a combined meeting 
held in Boston and discussed by such 
representative neurologists as Drs. 
Mills, Dercum, J. K. Mitchell, and 
Sinkler, of Philadelphia ; Drs. Dana, 
Sachs, Collins, Hunt, Meacham, and 
Jelliffe, of New York; Dr. White of 
Washington, and Drs. Putnam and 
Prince, of Boston. 

243 



WHY WORRY? 

Such faulty mental Habits as worry 
and obsession, doubting folly, and 
Iiypoeliondria, are no more amenable 
to physical treatment than the habit 
of swearing, or of over-indulgence in 
food and drink. Even the psychic 
treatment, by another, of such dis- 
orders, as of such habits, labors under 
the disadvantage that all attempts to 
influence another by exhortation, 
ridicule, or reproach are met by 
active or passive resistance on the 
part of the individual toward whom 
these efforts are directed. A con- 
scientious resolve on the part of the 
individual himself, whether started 
by a casual hint or by a new line of 
thought, is often more effective than 
any amount of outside pressure, how- 
ever well directed. 

It is my hope and belief that the 
over-solicitous individual will be in- 

244 



HOME TREATMENT 

fluencecl by reading these descrip- 
tions to adopt, of Ms own initiative, 
some of these suggestions. His most 
striking peculiarity is his conviction 
that he cannot take the chances others 
do, that the criticisms he receives are 
peculiarly annoying, and that his 
sources of worry are something set 
apart from the experience of or- 
dinary mortals. This conviction leads 
him to meet argument by argument, 
reproach and ridicule by indignant 
protest or brooding silence. The 
perusal of these sections may lead 
him to alter his ideals. Suggestions 
for home treatment have been scat- 
tered through the various pages; it 
only remains to sum them up. 

,We have traced worry back to 
exaggerated self-consciousness and 
obsession; it is against these two 

245 



WHY WORRY? 

faulty tendencies that training may 
be directed. 

The first step is the initiation of a 
new attitude, namely, the common- 
place. The establishment of this 
attitude involves the sacrifice of self- 
love, and of the melancholy pleasure 
of playing the martyr. The over- 
sensitive individual must recognize 
the fact that if people do not want 
him round it may be because he 
inflicts his ego too obtrusively upon 
his associates. He must realize that 
others are more interested in their 
own affairs than in his, and that how- 
ever cutting their comments and 
unjust their criticisms, and however 
deeply these may sink into his soul, 
they are only passing incidents with 
them. 

He must realize that if two people 
whisper they are not necessarily 

246 



HOME TREATMENT 

whispering about him, and if they are 
it is of no consequence, and merely 
shows their lack of breeding. On 
public occasions he must remember 
that others are thinking of them- 
selves, or of the subject in hand, quite 
as much as they are of him and how 
he behaves. He must realize that 
even if he does something foolish it 
will only make a passing impression 
on others, and that they will like him 
none the less for it. 

He must practice externalizing his 
thoughts. If criticised, he must ask 
himself whether the criticism is just 
or mijust. If just, he must learn to 
accept and act upon it ; if imjust, he 
must learn to classify the critic, as 
unreasonable, thoughtless, or ill-na- 
tured, place him in the appropriate 
mental compartment, throw the criti- 
cism into the intellectual waste-bas- 

247 



WHY WORRY? 

ket, and proceed upon Ms way. This 
practice, difficult at first, will, if 
assiduously cultivated, become more 
and more automatic, and will ma- 
terially modify a fruitful source of 
worry. 

The next step is to practice the 
control of the dominating impulses 
(obsessions). If one finds himself 
impelled continually to drum, or walk 
the floor, he will find the habit cannot 
be dropped at once, but if he can 
refrain from it for a few moments 
once or twice in the day, no matter 
how lost he feels without it, and sit 
for a few minutes relaxed and 
motionless, the intervals can be grad- 
ually increased. Even the chronic 
doubter may appreciate the fact that 
this practice aids in preparing on-e 
for taking and keeping, at night, the 
quiet and immobile position which 

248 



HOME TREATMENT 

favors sleep. The bearing of this 
training upon worry may not be 
immediately obvious, but if one can- 
not overcome these simple physical 
compulsions he will find it still harder 
to overcome the doubts, the fears, and 
the scruples which underlie his 
worry. 

It is hard to give up the idea that 
we are so peculiarly constituted that 
it produces a special disgust in our 
case if another constantly clears his 
throat, and a peculiar annoyance if 
he rocks. It is difficult to relinquish 
the belief that, however callous others 
may be, our nervous system is so 
delicately adjusted that we cannot 
work when others make unnecessary 
noise, and we cannot sleep if a clock 
ticks in our hearing. But if one per- 
sistently cultivates the commonplace, 

249 



WHY WORRY? 



he will at last find himself seeking 
instead of avoiding the objects of his 
former torture, merely to exercise his 
new-found mastery of himself, and to 
realize that *'He that ruleth his spirit 
is better than he that taketh a city.'^ 

It is the imperative duty of every 
sufferer from doubting folly to say 
to himself, ^^I will perform this act 
once with my whole attention, then 
leave it and turn my mind in other 
channels before I have dulled my per- 
ception by repetition." 

If one is prone to chronic indeci- 
sion, he must remind himself that it 
is better to do the wrong thing with 
single mind, than to work himself 
into a frenzy of anxious doubt. In 
case the choice is not an important 
one, he must learn to pounce upon 
either task, and waste no further 
time. If the doubt concerns an im- 

250 



HOME TREATMENT 

portant matter, he must learn to 
devote only that attention to the mat- 
ter which is commensurate with its 
importance, then decide it one way or 
the other, realizing that it is better to 
make a mistake, even in an important 
matter than to worry one's self 
into utter helplessness by conflicting 
emotions. 

If insistent fear attacks one, he 
must remind himself that the worst 
that can happen to him is not so bad 
as the state of the chronic coward and 
the hypochondriac. He must practice 
taking the chances that others do, 
and must learn to go through the 
dreaded experiences, not with his 
nervous system stimulated into undue 
tension, but with body and mind 
relaxed by such considerations as I 
have indicated. 

The maxim is a useful aid in sug- 

251 



WHY WORRY? 

gestion, but it should be carefully 
selected. Most children seem to be 
brought up on maxims which pre- 
suppose mental deficiency and con- 
stitutional carelessness. But the 
naturally over-thoughtful and too- 
conscientious child, the child to whom 
applies Sir John Lubbock's observa- 
tion that the term ^^ happy childhood" 
is sometimes a misnomer, needs no 
admonition to *^Try, try again," and 
to ^' Never weary of well doing." 

Among other sayings, whether of 
home manufacture or acquired, I 
have often found comfort in a sug- 
gestion first called to my attention by 
my friend. Dr. Maurice Richardson, 
who carries, I believe, Epictetus in 
his bag, but who does not despise the 
lesser prophets. One day when I was 
borrowing trouble about some pro- 
spective calamity, he said he always 

252 



HOME TREATMENT 



drew consolation from the old far- 
mer's observation: 

''Mebbe 'taint so!" 

Much unintentional self-suggestion 
is conveyed in one's habitual method 
of expressing his attitude toward 
annoyances, thus: ^^That simply 
drives me wild." Suppose, now, one 
should try a little substitution; for 
example : 



X driv 



N th' cr ( ^^1"^'^^ ^6 wild. 

(but that). 
I can stand anything . . ,,> 

(not) . (this) 

I can , X sleep in , v position. 

The quieting effect is immediately 
perceptible. 

Nor is the injurious effect of the 
explosive habit of speech limited to 
the person who indulges it. The other 
day a lady, apparently in no haste, 
sauntered into a station of the ^^Ele- 

253 



WHY WORRY? 

vated" ahead of me, holding by the 
hand a small boy. The boy was 
enjoying himself immensely, gazing 
about him with the wide-awake, but 
calmly contemplative air peculiar to 
childhood. Suddenly the lady saw 
that a train was about to leave the 
station, and was seized by the not 
uncommon compulsion to take the 
last train instead of the next one. 
She hurried the boy across the plat- 
form only to meet the closed door of 
the departing train. 

^'Isn't that provohing!'' she ex- 
claimed. And the boy began to 
whimper. 

Although the main object of this 
book is to call attention to the mental 
rather than the physical treatment 
of these states, I cannot forbear re- 
minding the reader of certain routine 

254 



HOiME TREATMENT 

measures which facilitate the desired 
improvement in mental attitude. 

It is well to start the day with a 
quick plunge in cold water, that is, in 
water of the natural temperature 
excepting in the cold season, when 
the extreme chill may be taken off to 
advantage. A brisk rub with rough 
towels should follow. One should 
proceed immediately from the warm 
bed to the bath, and should not first 
^^cool off." A few setting-up exer- 
cises (bending the trunk forward and 
back, sidewise, and with a twist) may 
precede the bath, and a few simple 
arm exercises follow it. A few deep 
breaths will inevitably accompany 
these procedures. When one returns 
to his room he no longer notices the 
chill in the air, and he has made a 
start toward accustoming himself to, 
and really enjoying, lower tempera- 

255 



WHY WORRY? 

tures than he fancied he could stand 
at all. 

Every healthy adult should walk 
at least two miles daily in the open. 
We have been forced to readjust our 
ideas as to the distance even an 
elderly person can walk without harm 
since a pedestrian of sixty-nine has, 
without apparent injiuy, covered 
over one thousand miles, over or- 
dinary roads, at an average of fifty 
miles a day. 

The day's work should be started 
with the resolution that every task 
shall be taken up in its turn, without 
doubts and without forebodings, that 
bridges shall not be crossed until they 
are reached, that the vagaries of 
others shall amuse and interest, not 
distress us, and that we will live in 
the present, not in the past or the 
future. We must avoid undertaking 

256 



HOME TREATMENT 

too much, and whatever we do under- 
take we must try not to worry as to 
whether we shall succeed. This only 
prevents our succeeding. We should 
devote all our efforts to the task itself, 
and remember that even failure 
under these circimistances may be 
better than success at the expense of 
prolonged nervous agitation. 

^^Rest must be complete when 
taken and must balance the effort in 
work — rest meaning often some form 
of recreation as w^ell as the passive 
rest of sleep. Economy of effort 
should be gained through normal con- 
centration — tha+ is, the power of 
erasing all previous impressions 
and allowing a subject to hold 
and carry us, by dropping every 
thought or effort that interferes 
with it, in muscle, nerve, and mind." 
(Annie Payson Call, ' ' Power Through 
Repose.") 

17 257 



WHY WORRY? 

The over-scrupulous and method- 
ical individual who can neither r Teep 
nor take a vacation until all the 
affairs of his life are arranged must 
remind himself that this happy con- 
summation will not be attained in his 
lifetime. It behooves him, therefore, 
if he is ever to sleep, or if he is ever 
to take a vacation, to do it now, nor 
need he postpone indefinitely 

" That blessed mood 
In which the burden of the mystery, 
In which the hea^'7 and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world 
Is lightened." 



258 



XIX. 

HOME TREATMENT (CONTINUED) 

Happiness and success in life do not depend on 
circumstances, but on ourselves. 

Sir John Luhbock. 

The obsession to ^^ arrive" is a 
fertile source of fret and worry. This 
habit of mind leads to frantic and 
impatient labor and blocks our pleas- 
ure at every point. The person who 
plays a game only to see who wins 
loses half the benefit of the recrea- 
tion. Here are two ways of walking 
the half-mile to and from my office : 

Suppose I start out with my mind 
on my destination, thinking only of 
what I shall do when I get there, and 
how I shall do it. This thought in- 
fluences my whole body. I am all 
*' keyed up," my muscles are tense, 

259 



WHY WORRY? 

my breathing, even, is constricted and 
tHe walk does me comparatively little 
good. 

Suppose, now, I decide I am mak- 
ing a mistake, and determine to live 
in the present. General relaxation 
follows, I take a deep breath, and 
begin to notice my surroundings. I 
may even observe the sky-line of the 
buildings I have passed daily for 
years without knowing they had a 
sky-line; my gait becomes free and 
life takes on a different aspect. I 
have taken a long step toward mental 
tranquility as well as gaining ^^ power 
through repose." 

One of the hardest obsessions to 
overcome is the unduly insistent habit 
of mind regarding orderliness and 
cleanliness. It is not undue to desire 
and practice a reasonable degree of 
these virtues, but when it gives one a 

260 



HOME TREATMENT (CONTINUED) 

*^ fit" to see a picture slightly off tlie 
level, and drives one ^^wild" to see a 
speck of dust, it is time to modify the 
ideal. This is the frame of mind 
which encourages worry over trifles. 
If one really wishes to lessen worry 
he must cultivate a certain degree of 
tolerance for what does not square 
with his ideas, even if it does violence 
to a pet virtue. 

The careful housekeeper may ob- 
ject that so long as she can regulate 
her household to her liking, the habit 
of orderliness, even though extreme, 
causes her no worry. But it is only 
the hermit housekeeper who can en- 
tirely control her household. And 
further, the possessor of the over- 
orderly temperament, whether ap- 
plied to housekeeping, business, or 
play (if he ever plays), is bound 
sooner or later to impinge his ideas 

261 



WHY WORRY? 

of orderliness upon the domain of 
other peoples' affairs, in which his 
wishes cannot be paramount. In this 
event, at least, he will experience a 
worry only to be allayed by learning 
to stand something he does not like. 

Worry about the mental condition 
is disastrous. The habit should be 
cultivated of taking the mind for 
what it is, and using it, wasting no 
time in vain regrets that it is not 
nimbler or more profound. Just as 
the digestion is impeded by solicitude, 
so the working of the brain is ham- 
pered by using the energy in worry 
which should be devoted directly to 
the task in hand. Children fre- 
quently worry because their memory 
is poor. It should be explained to 
them that in ninety-nine cases out of 
a hundred apparent lack of memory 

262 



HOME TREATMENT (CONTINUED) 

is only lack of attention, and they 
should be urged to cease distracting 
the attention by wandering in the 
fields of idle speculation or in making 
frantic leaps to surmount imagin- 
ary obstacles. 

It is important for parents of 
morbidly sensitive and over-scrupu- 
lous children, with acute likes and 
dislikes, to discourage the tendency 
of the child to become more and more 
peculiar. Sensitive children are in- 
clined to worry because they think 
others do not care for them or want 
them round. If such children can be 
led to take a bird's-eye view of them- 
selves, they may be made to realize 
that others crave their society accord- 
ing as they are helpful, entertaining, 
sympathetic, or tactful, because they 
instil courage and give comfort. 
They should be urged, therefore, to 

263 



WHY WORRY? 

cultivate these qualities instead of 
wasting their energy in tears and 
recriminations; and they should be 
encouraged to practice such of these 
traits as they can master instead of 
becoming moody in society, or with- 
drawing to brood in solitude, either 
of which errors may result in pro- 
ducing on the part of others a genuine 
dislike. In other words, teach them 
to avoid enforcing too far their ego 
on themselves or their environment. 
Parents must also remember that 
over-solicitous attention on their part 
is bound to react to the disadvantage 
of the child. The story is told of 
Phillips Brooks that, when a child, he 
put a newly sharpened pencil into his 
mouth further and further until it 
slipped down his throat. He asked 
his mother what would happen if 
anyone should swallow a pencil. She 

- 264 



HOME TREATMENT (CONTINUED) 

answered that she supposed it would 
kill him. Phillips kept silence, and 
his mother made no further inquiry. 
This incident would indicate that 
Phillips Brooks had already, as a 
child, attained a mental equipoise 
which the average individual hardly 
achieves in a lifetime. The story 
appeals to me no less as evidence of 
self-control on the part of the 
mother ; and I like to imagine that she 
suppressed the question a startled 
parent naturally would ask, realizing 
that no amount of worry would recall 
the pencil if he had swallowed it, and 
that nothing was to be gained by over- 
turning the household, or by giving 
the boy an example of agitation sure 
to react to the detriment of the mind 
unfolding under her supervision. 
Unless, therefore, the facts of this 
story have become distorted by im- 

265 



WHY WORRY? 

agery, it shows exceptional heredity 
and unusual training. 

Not every one can claim such 
heredity, and not every one can look 
back on such training; but it is not 
too much to say that every one can 
so direct his thoughts and so order 
his actions as gradually to attain a 
somewhat higher level of self-control 
than either his mental endowment or 
his early training would have prom- 
ised. For mental training is no more 
limited to feats of memory, and to 
practice in the solution of difficult 
problems, than is physical training 
comprised in the lifting of heavy 
weights in harness. In fact, such 
exercises are always in danger of 
leaving the mental athlete intellect- 
ually muscle-bound, if I may use such 
an expression; whereas the kind of 
training I have in mind tends to 

2G6 



HOME TREATMENT (CONTINUED) 

establish mental poise, to improve the 
disposition, to fit the mind (and in- 
directly the body) better to meet the 
varied exigencies of daily life, and 
to help the individual to react in 
every way more comfortably to his 
surroundings. 

I have only hinted at the detailed 
suggestions by which the worry habit 
and allied faulty mental tendencies 
may be combated. The obsessive 
who is able to alter his ideals and 
systematically pursue the line of 
thought here sketched will himself 
find other directions in which control 
can be exercised. It is true that no 
one is likely to reach any of the 
extreme degrees of incapacity we 
have considered unless he is naturally 
endowed with a mind predestined to 
unbalance. At the same time any of 
us who have a nervous temperament 

267. 



WHY WORRY? 

ever so slightly above the average of 
intensity will do well to check these 
tendencies as far as possible in their 
incipiency, realizing that no physical 
evil we may dread can be worse than 
the lot of the confirmed hypochon- 
driac or the compulsively insane. 

Perhaps I have dwelt too much 
upon the extreme results of morbid 
mental tendencies, and too little upon 
the ideal for which we should strive. 
This ideal I shall not attempt to 
portray, but leave it rather to the im- 
agination. Suffice it to say that the 
ladder by which self-control is at- 
tained is so long that there is ample 
room to ascend and descend without 
reaching either end. Some of us are 
started high on the ladder, some low ; 
but it is certainly within the power 
of each to alter somewhat his level. 
We can slide down, but must climb 

268 



HOME TREATMENT (CONTINUED) 

up; and that such commonplaces as 
are here presented may help some of 
my fellow worriers to gain a rung or 
two is my earnest wish. Even when 
we slip back we can appreciate the 
sentiment of Ironsides: 

" Night after night the cards were fairly shuflfled 
And fairly dealt, but still I got no hand. 
The morning came, but I with mind unruffled 
Did simply say, *I do not understand.' 

" Life is a game of whist ; from unseen sources 

The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt. 
Vain are our efforts to control the forces. 
Which, though imseen, are no less strongly felt. 

** I do not like the way the cards are shuffled. 
But still I like the game and want to play. 
And through the long, long night with mind un- 
ruffled, 
Play what I get until the dawn of day." 



269 



INDEX 

Addison, as a public speaker 57 

Amiel, a doubter 98 

Angell, George T., on sleep 155 

Anger, Epicurus on 28 

Annoyances, maxim for 140, 163 

Argumentative tendency in doubting folly . 94 et seq. 

Appetite, Epicurus on gratification of 27 

obsession regarding 194 

Attention, the important factor in memory 263 

Avebury, Lord, see Lubbock, Sir John 

B 

Bacon, Sir Francis, as a botanist 223 

Bathing Ill, 174, 255 

Beadon, on dismissing unpleasant thoughts 162 

Benson, Arthur, on over-solicitude of parents. . . 182 

on the disagreeable 187 

Borrowing trouble, maxim for 253 

Burton, on moods 205 

C 

Call, Annie Payson, on rest 257 

Carlyle, obsessions of 63 

hypochondria of 120 

Cavendish, shyness of 58 

aothing Ill, 175 

Concentration 153 

Corneille, inability to express self in public. ... 59 
271 



INDEX 

^ PAGE 

Courtney, on fads 222-236 

work and worry 132 

Cowper, on affronts 139 

Criticism, attitude toward 247 

D 

Dana, " Partial Passing of Neurasthenia," 130 

Descartes, unable to express self in public 59 

Deviation vs. Degeneration 100 

Digestion, maxim for undue solicitude regarding. 112 

Doubting folly 16, 82 ef seq. 

maxim for 250 

Dryden, unable to express self in public 59 

E 

Epictetus 39, 193, 242 

Epicurus 22 ei seq., 36 

Erasmus, obsessions of 64 

Exercise 110, 239, 255, 256, 259 

F 

Fads 179, 222 et seq. 

Flaubert, victim of doubting folly 98 

Folie du doute, see doubting folly. 

Froude, on Carlyle's hypochondria 126 

G 

Genius, and obsession 66 

doubting folly in 98 

Gladstone, on dismissing unpleasant thoughts. . 162 

Goethe, suggestion for mental training 242 

Goldsmith, on trifles 190 

272 



INDEX 

^ PAGE 

Golf 110, 239 

"Golf Arm," 169 

Gould, eyestrain of Carlyle 120 

H 

Habit, and obsession 69 

Haeckel, on egotism and altruism 80 

Horace 38 

Huxley 119 

Hypochondria 14, 49, 101 et seq., 201 

maxim for 50 

I 

Ibsen, on doubt 82 

Impatience with subordinates, maxim for 141 

Insistent thought ^2 et seq. 

Insomnia, see sleeplessness. 

Irving, Washington, as a public speaker 57 

J 

Johnson, obsessions of 62 

K 

Knapp, doubting habit 137 

L 

La Fontaine, unable to express self in public. . . 59 

Lombroso 58, 98 

Lubbock, Sir John 223, 252, 259 

M 

Manzoni 59, 98 

Marcus Aurehus 13, 22, 30 et seq., 139, 166 

18 273 



INDEX 

M PAGE 

Maxims, suggestive 50, 112, 140, 141, 158 

163, 201, 209, 250, 253 

Melancholy, Thoreau on 208 

Burton on 205 

Mercier, on ability to forget 78 

Moliere, on hypochondria 101 

Montaigne 53 

Moods 205 

maxim for 209 

• N 

Neurasthenia 15, 129 et seq. 

Newton, unable to express self in public 59 

O 

Obsession 54, 59 et seq. 

Occupation neurosis 166 et seq. 

Old age no bar to changing habit 67 

P 

Parental solicitude 182, 264 

Paul 137 

Pedantry, in the obsessive 75 

Peterson 131, 143 

Phobia 105 ei seq., 199 

maxim for 201 

Poison, excessive fear of 70 

Pope, on taking offense 139 

R 

Reade, Charles, on parent of Erasmus 65 

Responsibilities, delegating 150 

Rossini, phobia of 107 

274 



INDEX 

^ PAGE 

Saleeby 178 

Seclusion, Epicurus on 27 

Marcus Aurelius on 32 

Self-consciousness 50, 53 et seq. 

Sensations, undue attention paid to 112 

Sleeplessness 26, 135, 147 et seq. 

maxim for 158 

Soukanhoff, on the obsessive, 76 

Spinoza, on control of the emotions 141 

Spitzka, definition of insanity 199 

T 

Taylor, on psycho-therapy 243 

Tennyson, as public speaker 56 

Thoreau, on melancholy 208 

Tiffany, Francis, on fear of future 78 

Tolstoi 98 

V 

Vacation 152, 237 

Virgil 59 

W 

Walking 179, 256, 259 

Weather-worry 46 et seq., 110 

Whiting, Lilian, on enjoyment of the moment. . 184 

Whittier 146 

Williams, Harold, treatment 142 

Writer's cramp 166, 167 



275 



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